alt.atheism	alt atheism faq atheist resources archive name atheism resources alt atheism archive name resources last modified december version atheist resources addresses of atheist organizations usa freedom from religion foundation darwin fish bumper stickers and assorted other atheist paraphernalia are available from the freedom from religion foundation in the us write to ffrf p o box madison wi telephone evolution designs evolution designs sell the darwin fish it s a fish symbol like the ones christians stick on their cars but with feet and the word darwin written inside the deluxe moulded d plastic fish is postpaid in the us write to evolution designs laurel canyon north hollywood ca people in the san francisco bay area can get darwin fish from lynn gold try mailing figmo netcom com for net people who go to lynn directly the price is per fish american atheist press aap publish various atheist books critiques of the bible lists of biblical contradictions and so on one such book is the bible handbook by w p ball and g w foote american atheist press pp isbn nd edition bible contradictions absurdities atrocities immoralities contains ball foote the bible contradicts itself aap based on the king james version of the bible write to american atheist press p o box austin tx or cameron road austin tx telephone fax prometheus books sell books including haught s holy horrors see below write to east amherst street buffalo new york telephone an alternate address which may be newer or older is prometheus books glenn drive buffalo ny african americans for humanism an organization promoting black secular humanism and uncovering the history of black freethought they publish a quarterly newsletter aah examiner write to norm r allen jr african americans for humanism p o box buffalo ny united kingdom rationalist press association national secular society islington high street holloway road london n ew london n nl british humanist association south place ethical society lamb s conduit passage conway hall london wc r rh red lion square london wc r rl fax the national secular society publish the freethinker a monthly magazine founded in germany ibka e v internationaler bund der konfessionslosen und atheisten postfach d berlin germany ibka publish a journal miz materialien und informationen zur zeit politisches journal der konfessionslosesn und atheisten hrsg ibka e v miz vertrieb postfach d berlin germany for atheist books write to ibdk internationaler b ucherdienst der konfessionslosen postfach d hannover germany telephone books fiction thomas m disch the santa claus compromise short story the ultimate proof that santa exists all characters and events are fictitious any similarity to living or dead gods uh well walter m miller jr a canticle for leibowitz one gem in this post atomic doomsday novel is the monks who spent their lives copying blueprints from saint leibowitz filling the sheets of paper with ink and leaving white lines and letters edgar pangborn davy post atomic doomsday novel set in clerical states the church for example forbids that anyone produce describe or use any substance containing atoms philip k dick philip k dick dick wrote many philosophical and thought provoking short stories and novels his stories are bizarre at times but very approachable he wrote mainly sf but he wrote about people truth and religion rather than technology although he often believed that he had met some sort of god he remained sceptical amongst his novels the following are of some relevance galactic pot healer a fallible alien deity summons a group of earth craftsmen and women to a remote planet to raise a giant cathedral from beneath the oceans when the deity begins to demand faith from the earthers pot healer joe fernwright is unable to comply a polished ironic and amusing novel a maze of death noteworthy for its description of a technology based religion valis the schizophrenic hero searches for the hidden mysteries of gnostic christianity after reality is fired into his brain by a pink laser beam of unknown but possibly divine origin he is accompanied by his dogmatic and dismissively atheist friend and assorted other odd characters the divine invasion god invades earth by making a young woman pregnant as she returns from another star system unfortunately she is terminally ill and must be assisted by a dead man whose brain is wired to hour easy listening music margaret atwood the handmaid s tale a story based on the premise that the us congress is mysteriously assassinated and fundamentalists quickly take charge of the nation to set it right again the book is the diary of a woman s life as she tries to live under the new christian theocracy women s right to own property is revoked and their bank accounts are closed sinful luxuries are outlawed and the radio is only used for readings from the bible crimes are punished retroactively doctors who performed legal abortions in the old world are hunted down and hanged atwood s writing style is difficult to get used to at first but the tale grows more and more chilling as it goes on various authors the bible this somewhat dull and rambling work has often been criticized however it is probably worth reading if only so that you ll know what all the fuss is about it exists in many different versions so make sure you get the one true version books non fiction peter de rosa vicars of christ bantam press although de rosa seems to be christian or even catholic this is a very enlighting history of papal immoralities adulteries fallacies etc german translation gottes erste diener die dunkle seite des papsttums droemer knaur michael martin atheism a philosophical justification temple university press philadelphia usa a detailed and scholarly justification of atheism contains an outstanding appendix defining terminology and usage in this necessarily tendentious area argues both for negative atheism i e the non belief in the existence of god s and also for positive atheism the belief in the non existence of god s includes great refutations of the most challenging arguments for god particular attention is paid to refuting contempory theists such as platinga and swinburne pages isbn hardcover paperback also available the case against christianity temple university press a comprehensive critique of christianity in which he considers the best contemporary defences of christianity and ultimately demonstrates that they are unsupportable and or incoherent pages isbn james turner without god without creed the johns hopkins university press baltimore md usa subtitled the origins of unbelief in america examines the way in which unbelief whether agnostic or atheistic became a mainstream alternative world view focusses on the period and while considering france and britain the emphasis is on american and particularly new england developments neither a religious history of secularization or atheism without god without creed is rather the intellectual history of the fate of a single idea the belief that god exists pages isbn hardcover x paper george seldes editor the great thoughts ballantine books new york usa a dictionary of quotations of a different kind concentrating on statements and writings which explicitly or implicitly present the person s philosophy and world view includes obscure and often suppressed opinions from many people for some popular observations traces the way in which various people expressed and twisted the idea over the centuries quite a number of the quotations are derived from cardiff s what great men think of religion and noyes views of religion pages isbn paper x richard swinburne the existence of god revised edition clarendon paperbacks oxford this book is the second volume in a trilogy that began with the coherence of theism and was concluded with faith and reason in this work swinburne attempts to construct a series of inductive arguments for the existence of god his arguments which are somewhat tendentious and rely upon the imputation of late th century western christian values and aesthetics to a god which is supposedly as simple as can be conceived were decisively rejected in mackie s the miracle of theism in the revised edition of the existence of god swinburne includes an appendix in which he makes a somewhat incoherent attempt to rebut mackie j l mackie the miracle of theism oxford this posthumous volume contains a comprehensive review of the principal arguments for and against the existence of god it ranges from the classical philosophical positions of descartes anselm berkeley hume et al through the moral arguments of newman kant and sidgwick to the recent restatements of the classical theses by plantinga and swinburne it also addresses those positions which push the concept of god beyond the realm of the rational such as those of kierkegaard kung and philips as well as replacements for god such as lelie s axiarchism the book is a delight to read less formalistic and better written than martin s works and refreshingly direct when compared with the hand waving of swinburne james a haught holy horrors an illustrated history of religious murder and madness prometheus books looks at religious persecution from ancient times to the present day and not only by christians library of congress catalog card number norm r allen jr african american humanism an anthology see the listing for african americans for humanism above gordon stein an anthology of atheism and rationalism prometheus books an anthology covering a wide range of subjects including the devil evil and morality and the history of freethought comprehensive bibliography edmund d cohen the mind of the bible believer prometheus books a study of why people become christian fundamentalists and what effect it has on them net resources there s a small mail based archive server at mantis co uk which carries archives of old alt atheism moderated articles and assorted other files for more information send mail to archive server mantis co uk saying help send atheism index and it will mail back a reply mathew
alt.atheism	alt atheism faq introduction to atheism archive name atheism introduction alt atheism archive name introduction last modified april version begin pgp signed message an introduction to atheism by mathew mathew mantis co uk this article attempts to provide a general introduction to atheism whilst i have tried to be as neutral as possible regarding contentious issues you should always remember that this document represents only one viewpoint i would encourage you to read widely and draw your own conclusions some relevant books are listed in a companion article to provide a sense of cohesion and progression i have presented this article as an imaginary conversation between an atheist and a theist all the questions asked by the imaginary theist are questions which have been cropped up repeatedly on alt atheism since the newsgroup was created some other frequently asked questions are answered in a companion article please note that this article is arguably slanted towards answering questions posed from a christian viewpoint this is because the faq files reflect questions which have actually been asked and it is predominantly christians who proselytize on alt atheism so when i talk of religion i am talking primarily about religions such as christianity judaism and islam which involve some sort of superhuman divine being much of the discussion will apply to other religions but some of it may not what is atheism atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of god some atheists go further and believe that god does not exist the former is often referred to as the weak atheist position and the latter as strong atheism it is important to note the difference between these two positions weak atheism is simple scepticism disbelief in the existence of god strong atheism is a positive belief that god does not exist please do not fall into the trap of assuming that all atheists are strong atheists some atheists believe in the non existence of all gods others limit their atheism to specific gods such as the christian god rather than making flat out denials but isn t disbelieving in god the same thing as believing he doesn t exist definitely not disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe it to be true not believing that something is true is not equivalent to believing that it is false one may simply have no idea whether it is true or not which brings us to agnosticism what is agnosticism then the term agnosticism was coined by professor huxley at a meeting of the metaphysical society in he defined an agnostic as someone who disclaimed strong atheism and believed that the ultimate origin of things must be some cause unknown and unknowable thus an agnostic is someone who believes that we do not and cannot know for sure whether god exists words are slippery things and language is inexact beware of assuming that you can work out someone s philosophical point of view simply from the fact that she calls herself an atheist or an agnostic for example many people use agnosticism to mean weak atheism and use the word atheism only when referring to strong atheism beware also that because the word atheist has so many shades of meaning it is very difficult to generalize about atheists about all you can say for sure is that atheists don t believe in god for example it certainly isn t the case that all atheists believe that science is the best way to find out about the universe so what is the philosophical justification or basis for atheism there are many philosophical justifications for atheism to find out why a particular person chooses to be an atheist it s best to ask her many atheists feel that the idea of god as presented by the major religions is essentially self contradictory and that it is logically impossible that such a god could exist others are atheists through scepticism because they see no evidence that god exists but isn t it impossible to prove the non existence of something there are many counter examples to such a statement for example it is quite simple to prove that there does not exist a prime number larger than all other prime numbers of course this deals with well defined objects obeying well defined rules whether gods or universes are similarly well defined is a matter for debate however assuming for the moment that the existence of a god is not provably impossible there are still subtle reasons for assuming the non existence of god if we assume that something does not exist it is always possible to show that this assumption is invalid by finding a single counter example if on the other hand we assume that something does exist and if the thing in question is not provably impossible showing that the assumption is invalid may require an exhaustive search of all possible places where such a thing might be found to show that it isn t there such an exhaustive search is often impractical or impossible there is no such problem with largest primes because we can prove that they don t exist therefore it is generally accepted that we must assume things do not exist unless we have evidence that they do even theists follow this rule most of the time they don t believe in unicorns even though they can t conclusively prove that no unicorns exist anywhere to assume that god exists is to make an assumption which probably cannot be tested we cannot make an exhaustive search of everywhere god might be to prove that he doesn t exist anywhere so the sceptical atheist assumes by default that god does not exist since that is an assumption we can test those who profess strong atheism usually do not claim that no sort of god exists instead they generally restrict their claims so as to cover varieties of god described by followers of various religions so whilst it may be impossible to prove conclusively that no god exists it may be possible to prove that say a god as described by a particular religious book does not exist it may even be possible to prove that no god described by any present day religion exists in practice believing that no god described by any religion exists is very close to believing that no god exists however it is sufficiently different that counter arguments based on the impossibility of disproving every kind of god are not really applicable but what if god is essentially non detectable if god interacts with our universe in any way the effects of his interaction must be measurable hence his interaction with our universe must be detectable if god is essentially non detectable it must therefore be the case that he does not interact with our universe in any way many atheists would argue that if god does not interact with our universe at all it is of no importance whether he exists or not if the bible is to be believed god was easily detectable by the israelites surely he should still be detectable today note that i am not demanding that god interact in a scientifically verifiable physical way it must surely be possible to perceive some effect caused by his presence though otherwise how can i distinguish him from all the other things that don t exist ok you may think there s a philosophical justification for atheism but isn t it still a religious belief one of the most common pastimes in philosophical discussion is the redefinition game the cynical view of this game is as follows person a begins by making a contentious statement when person b points out that it can t be true person a gradually re defines the words he used in the statement until he arrives at something person b is prepared to accept he then records the statement along with the fact that person b has agreed to it and continues eventually a uses the statement as an agreed fact but uses his original definitions of all the words in it rather than the obscure redefinitions originally needed to get b to agree to it rather than be seen to be apparently inconsistent b will tend to play along the point of this digression is that the answer to the question isn t atheism a religious belief depends crucially upon what is meant by religious religion is generally characterized by belief in a superhuman controlling power especially in some sort of god and by faith and worship it s worth pointing out in passing that some varieties of buddhism are not religion according to such a definition atheism is certainly not a belief in any sort of superhuman power nor is it categorized by worship in any meaningful sense widening the definition of religious to encompass atheism tends to result in many other aspects of human behaviour suddenly becoming classed as religious as well such as science politics and watching tv ok so it s not a religion but surely belief in atheism or science is still just an act of faith like religion is firstly it s not entirely clear that sceptical atheism is something one actually believes in secondly it is necessary to adopt a number of core beliefs or assumptions to make some sort of sense out of the sensory data we experience most atheists try to adopt as few core beliefs as possible and even those are subject to questioning if experience throws them into doubt science has a number of core assumptions for example it is generally assumed that the laws of physics are the same for all observers these are the sort of core assumptions atheists make if such basic ideas are called acts of faith then almost everything we know must be said to be based on acts of faith and the term loses its meaning faith is more often used to refer to complete certain belief in something according to such a definition atheism and science are certainly not acts of faith of course individual atheists or scientists can be as dogmatic as religious followers when claiming that something is certain this is not a general tendency however there are many atheists who would be reluctant to state with certainty that the universe exists faith is also used to refer to belief without supporting evidence or proof sceptical atheism certainly doesn t fit that definition as sceptical atheism has no beliefs strong atheism is closer but still doesn t really match as even the most dogmatic atheist will tend to refer to experimental data or the lack of it when asserting that god does not exist if atheism is not religious surely it s anti religious it is an unfortunate human tendency to label everyone as either for or against friend or enemy the truth is not so clear cut atheism is the position that runs logically counter to theism in that sense it can be said to be anti religion however when religious believers speak of atheists being anti religious they usually mean that the atheists have some sort of antipathy or hatred towards theists this categorization of atheists as hostile towards religion is quite unfair atheist attitudes towards theists in fact cover a broad spectrum most atheists take a live and let live attitude unless questioned they will not usually mention their atheism except perhaps to close friends of course this may be in part because atheism is not socially acceptable in many countries a few atheists are quite anti religious and may even try to convert others when possible historically such anti religious atheists have made little impact on society outside the eastern bloc countries to digress slightly the soviet union was originally dedicated to separation of church and state just like the usa soviet citizens were legally free to worship as they wished the institution of state atheism came about when stalin took control of the soviet union and tried to destroy the churches in order to gain complete power over the population some atheists are quite vocal about their beliefs but only where they see religion encroaching on matters which are not its business for example the government of the usa such individuals are usually concerned that church and state should remain separate but if you don t allow religion to have a say in the running of the state surely that s the same as state atheism the principle of the separation of church and state is that the state shall not legislate concerning matters of religious belief in particular it means not only that the state cannot promote one religion at the expense of another but also that it cannot promote any belief which is religious in nature religions can still have a say in discussion of purely secular matters for example religious believers have historically been responsible for encouraging many political reforms even today many organizations campaigning for an increase in spending on foreign aid are founded as religious campaigns so long as they campaign concerning secular matters and so long as they do not discriminate on religious grounds most atheists are quite happy to see them have their say what about prayer in schools if there s no god why do you care if people pray because people who do pray are voters and lawmakers and tend to do things that those who don t pray can t just ignore also christian prayer in schools is intimidating to non christians even if they are told that they need not join in the diversity of religious and non religious belief means that it is impossible to formulate a meaningful prayer that will be acceptable to all those present at any public event also non prayers tend to have friends and family who pray it is reasonable to care about friends and family wasting their time even without other motives you mentioned christians who campaign for increased foreign aid what about atheists why aren t there any atheist charities or hospitals don t atheists object to the religious charities there are many charities without religious purpose that atheists can contribute to some atheists contribute to religious charities as well for the sake of the practical good they do some atheists even do voluntary work for charities founded on a theistic basis most atheists seem to feel that atheism isn t worth shouting about in connection with charity to them atheism is just a simple obvious everyday matter and so is charity many feel that it s somewhat cheap not to say self righteous to use simple charity as an excuse to plug a particular set of religious beliefs to weak atheists building a hospital to say i do not believe in god is a rather strange idea it s rather like holding a party to say today is not my birthday why the fuss atheism is rarely evangelical you said atheism isn t anti religious but is it perhaps a backlash against one s upbringing a way of rebelling perhaps it is for some but many people have parents who do not attempt to force any religious or atheist ideas upon them and many of those people choose to call themselves atheists it s also doubtless the case that some religious people chose religion as a backlash against an atheist upbringing as a way of being different on the other hand many people choose religion as a way of conforming to the expectations of others on the whole we can t conclude much about whether atheism or religion are backlash or conformism although in general people have a tendency to go along with a group rather than act or think independently how do atheists differ from religious people they don t believe in god that s all there is to it atheists may listen to heavy metal backwards even or they may prefer a verdi requiem even if they know the words they may wear hawaiian shirts they may dress all in black they may even wear orange robes many buddhists lack a belief in any sort of god some atheists even carry a copy of the bible around for arguing against of course whoever you are the chances are you have met several atheists without realising it atheists are usually unexceptional in behaviour and appearance unexceptional but aren t atheists less moral than religious people that depends if you define morality as obedience to god then of course atheists are less moral as they don t obey any god but usually when one talks of morality one talks of what is acceptable right and unacceptable wrong behaviour within society humans are social animals and to be maximally successful they must co operate with each other this is a good enough reason to discourage most atheists from anti social or immoral behaviour purely for the purposes of self preservation many atheists behave in a moral or compassionate way simply because they feel a natural tendency to empathize with other humans so why do they care what happens to others they don t know they simply are that way naturally there are some people who behave immorally and try to use atheism to justify their actions however there are equally many people who behave immorally and then try to use religious beliefs to justify their actions for example here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance jesus christ came into the world to save sinners but for that very reason i was shown mercy so that in me jesus christ might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life now to the king eternal immortal invisible the only god be honor and glory forever and ever the above quote is from a statement made to the court on february th by jeffrey dahmer the notorious cannibal serial killer of milwaukee wisconsin it seems that for every atheist mass murderer there is a religious mass murderer but what of more trivial morality a survey conducted by the roper organization found that behavior deteriorated after born again experiences while only of respondents said they had driven intoxicated before being born again had done so after conversion similarly had used illegal drugs before conversion after two percent admitted to engaging in illicit sex before salvation after freethought today september p so it seems that at best religion does not have a monopoly on moral behaviour is there such a thing as atheist morality if you mean is there such a thing as morality for atheists then the answer is yes as explained above many atheists have ideas about morality which are at least as strong as those held by religious people if you mean does atheism have a characteristic moral code then the answer is no atheism by itself does not imply anything much about how a person will behave most atheists follow many of the same moral rules as theists but for different reasons atheists view morality as something created by humans according to the way humans feel the world ought to work rather than seeing it as a set of rules decreed by a supernatural being then aren t atheists just theists who are denying god a study by the freedom from religion foundation found that over of the atheists who responded became atheists because religion did not work for them they had found that religious beliefs were fundamentally incompatible with what they observed around them atheists are not unbelievers through ignorance or denial they are unbelievers through choice the vast majority of them have spent time studying one or more religions sometimes in very great depth they have made a careful and considered decision to reject religious beliefs this decision may of course be an inevitable consequence of that individual s personality for a naturally sceptical person the choice of atheism is often the only one that makes sense and hence the only choice that person can honestly make but don t atheists want to believe in god atheists live their lives as though there is nobody watching over them many of them have no desire to be watched over no matter how good natured the big brother figure might be some atheists would like to be able to believe in god but so what should one believe things merely because one wants them to be true the risks of such an approach should be obvious atheists often decide that wanting to believe something is not enough there must be evidence for the belief but of course atheists see no evidence for the existence of god they are unwilling in their souls to see many if not most atheists were previously religious as has been explained above the vast majority have seriously considered the possibility that god exists many atheists have spent time in prayer trying to reach god of course it is true that some atheists lack an open mind but assuming that all atheists are biased and insincere is offensive and closed minded comments such as of course god is there you just aren t looking properly are likely to be viewed as patronizing certainly if you wish to engage in philosophical debate with atheists it is vital that you give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are being sincere if they say that they have searched for god if you are not willing to believe that they are basically telling the truth debate is futile isn t the whole of life completely pointless to an atheist many atheists live a purposeful life they decide what they think gives meaning to life and they pursue those goals they try to make their lives count not by wishing for eternal life but by having an influence on other people who will live on for example an atheist may dedicate his life to political reform in the hope of leaving his mark on history it is a natural human tendency to look for meaning or purpose in random events however it is by no means obvious that life is the sort of thing that has a meaning to put it another way not everything which looks like a question is actually a sensible thing to ask some atheists believe that asking what is the meaning of life is as silly as asking what is the meaning of a cup of coffee they believe that life has no purpose or meaning it just is so how do atheists find comfort in time of danger there are many ways of obtaining comfort from family friends or even pets or on a less spiritual level from food or drink or tv that may sound rather an empty and vulnerable way to face danger but so what should individuals believe in things because they are comforting or should they face reality no matter how harsh it might be in the end it s a decision for the individual concerned most atheists are unable to believe something they would not otherwise believe merely because it makes them feel comfortable they put truth before comfort and consider that if searching for truth sometimes makes them feel unhappy that s just hard luck don t atheists worry that they might suddenly be shown to be wrong the short answer is no do you many atheists have been atheists for years they have encountered many arguments and much supposed evidence for the existence of god but they have found all of it to be invalid or inconclusive thousands of years of religious belief haven t resulted in any good proof of the existence of god atheists therefore tend to feel that they are unlikely to be proved wrong in the immediate future and they stop worrying about it so why should theists question their beliefs don t the same arguments apply no because the beliefs being questioned are not similar weak atheism is the sceptical default position to take it asserts nothing strong atheism is a negative belief theism is a very strong positive belief atheists sometimes also argue that theists should question their beliefs because of the very real harm they can cause not just to the believers but to everyone else what sort of harm religion represents a huge financial and work burden on mankind it s not just a matter of religious believers wasting their money on church buildings think of all the time and effort spent building churches praying and so on imagine how that effort could be better spent many theists believe in miracle healing there have been plenty of instances of ill people being healed by a priest ceasing to take the medicines prescribed to them by doctors and dying as a result some theists have died because they have refused blood transfusions on religious grounds it is arguable that the catholic church s opposition to birth control and condoms in particular is increasing the problem of overpopulation in many third world countries and contributing to the spread of aids world wide religious believers have been known to murder their children rather than allow their children to become atheists or marry someone of a different religion those weren t real believers they just claimed to be believers as some sort of excuse what makes a real believer there are so many one true religions it s hard to tell look at christianity there are many competing groups all convinced that they are the only true christians sometimes they even fight and kill each other how is an atheist supposed to decide who s a real christian and who isn t when even the major christian churches like the catholic church and the church of england can t decide amongst themselves in the end most atheists take a pragmatic view and decide that anyone who calls himself a christian and uses christian belief or dogma to justify his actions should be considered a christian maybe some of those christians are just perverting christian teaching for their own ends but surely if the bible can be so readily used to support un christian acts it can t be much of a moral code if the bible is the word of god why couldn t he have made it less easy to misinterpret and how do you know that your beliefs aren t a perversion of what your god intended if there is no single unambiguous interpretation of the bible then why should an atheist take one interpretation over another just on your say so sorry but if someone claims that he believes in jesus and that he murdered others because jesus and the bible told him to do so we must call him a christian obviously those extreme sorts of beliefs should be questioned but since nobody has ever proved that god does not exist it must be very unlikely that more basic religious beliefs shared by all faiths are nonsense that does not hold because as was pointed out at the start of this dialogue positive assertions concerning the existence of entities are inherently much harder to disprove than negative ones nobody has ever proved that unicorns don t exist but that doesn t make it unlikely that they are myths it is therefore much more valid to hold a negative assertion by default than it is to hold a positive assertion by default of course weak atheists would argue that asserting nothing is better still well if atheism s so great why are there so many theists unfortunately the popularity of a belief has little to do with how correct it is or whether it works consider how many people believe in astrology graphology and other pseudo sciences many atheists feel that it is simply a human weakness to want to believe in gods certainly in many primitive human societies religion allows the people to deal with phenomena that they do not adequately understand of course there s more to religion than that in the industrialized world we find people believing in religious explanations of phenomena even when there are perfectly adequate natural explanations religion may have started as a means of attempting to explain the world but nowadays it serves other purposes as well but so many cultures have developed religions surely that must say something not really most religions are only superficially similar for example it s worth remembering that religions such as buddhism and taoism lack any sort of concept of god in the christian sense of course most religions are quick to denounce competing religions so it s rather odd to use one religion to try and justify another what about all the famous scientists and philosophers who have concluded that god exists for every scientist or philosopher who believes in a god there is one who does not besides as has already been pointed out the truth of a belief is not determined by how many people believe it also it is important to realize that atheists do not view famous scientists or philosophers in the same way that theists view their religious leaders a famous scientist is only human she may be an expert in some fields but when she talks about other matters her words carry no special weight many respected scientists have made themselves look foolish by speaking on subjects which lie outside their fields of expertise so are you really saying that widespread belief in religion indicates nothing not entirely it certainly indicates that the religion in question has properties which have helped it so spread so far the theory of memetics talks of memes sets of ideas which can propagate themselves between human minds by analogy with genes some atheists view religions as sets of particularly successful parasitic memes which spread by encouraging their hosts to convert others some memes avoid destruction by discouraging believers from questioning doctrine or by using peer pressure to keep one time believers from admitting that they were mistaken some religious memes even encourage their hosts to destroy hosts controlled by other memes of course in the memetic view there is no particular virtue associated with successful propagation of a meme religion is not a good thing because of the number of people who believe it any more than a disease is a good thing because of the number of people who have caught it even if religion is not entirely true at least it puts across important messages what are the fundamental messages of atheism there are many important ideas atheists promote the following are just a few of them don t be surprised to see ideas which are also present in some religions there is more to moral behaviour than mindlessly following rules be especially sceptical of positive claims if you want your life to have some sort of meaning it s up to you to find it search for what is true even if it makes you uncomfortable make the most of your life as it s probably the only one you ll have it s no good relying on some external power to change you you must change yourself just because something s popular doesn t mean it s good if you must assume something assume something it s easy to test don t believe things just because you want them to be true and finally and most importantly all beliefs should be open to question thanks for taking the time to read this article mathew for information about pgp send mail to pgpinfo mantis co uk
alt.atheism	re gospel dating in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes well john has a quite different not necessarily more elaborated theology there is some evidence that he must have known luke and that the content of q was known to him but not in a canonized form this is a new argument to me could you elaborate a little the argument goes as follows q oid quotes appear in john but not in the almost codified way they were in matthew or luke however they are considered to be similar enough to point to knowledge of q as such and not an entirely different source assuming that he knew luke would obviously put him after luke and would give evidence for the latter assumption i don t think this follows if you take the most traditional attributions then luke might have known john but john is an elder figure in either case we re talking spans of time here which are well within the range of lifetimes we are talking date of texts here not the age of the authors the usual explanation for the time order of mark matthew and luke does not consider their respective ages it says matthew has read the text of mark and luke that of matthew and probably that of mark as it is assumed that john knew the content of luke s text the evidence for that is not overwhelming admittedly earlier manuscripts of john have been discovered interesting where and which how are they dated how old are they unfortunately i haven t got the info at hand it was i think in the late s or early s and it was possibly as old as ce when they are from about why do they shed doubt on the order on putting john after the rest of the three i don t see your point it is exactly what james felder said they had no first hand knowledge of the events and it obvious that at least two of them used older texts as the base of their account and even the association of luke to paul or mark to peter are not generally accepted well a genuine letter of peter would be close enough wouldn t it sure an original together with id card of sender and receiver would be fine so what s that supposed to say am i missing something and i don t think a one step removed source is that bad if luke and mark and matthew learned their stories directly from diciples then i really cannot believe in the sort of big transformation from jesus to gospel that some people posit in news reports one generally gets no better information than this and if john is a diciple then there s nothing more to be said that john was a disciple is not generally accepted the style and language together with the theology are usually used as counterargument the argument that john was a disciple relies on the claim in the gospel of john itself is there any other evidence for it one step and one generation removed is bad even in our times compare that to reports of similar events in our century in almost illiterate societies not even to speak off that believers are not necessarily the best sources it is also obvious that mark has been edited how old are the oldest manuscripts to my knowledge which can be antiquated the oldest is quite after any of these estimates and it is not even complete the only clear editing is problem of the ending and it s basically a hopeless mess the oldest versions give a strong sense of incompleteness to the point where the shortest versions seem to break off in midsentence the most obvious solution is that at some point part of the text was lost the material from verse on is pretty clearly later and seems to represent a synopsys of the end of luke in other words one does not know what the original of mark did look like and arguments based on mark are pretty weak but how is that connected to a redating of john benedikt
alt.atheism	re university violating separation of church state dmn kepler unh edu until kings become philosophers or philosophers become kings writes recently ras have been ordered and none have resisted or cared about it apparently to post a religious flyer entitled the soul scroll thoughts on religion spirituality and matters of the soul on the inside of bathroom stall doors at my school the university of new hampshire it is some sort of newsletter assembled by a hall director somewhere on campus it poses a question about spirituality each issue and solicits responses to be included in the next issue it s all pretty vague i assume it s put out by a christian but they re very careful not to mention jesus or the bible i ve heard someone defend it saying well it doesn t support any one religion so what this is a state university and as a strong supporter of the separation of church and state i was enraged what can i do about this it sounds to me like it s just screaming out for parody give a copy to your friendly neighbourhood subgenius preacher with luck he ll run it through the mental mincer and hand you back an outrageously offensive and gut bustingly funny parody you can paste over the originals i can see it now the stool scroll thoughts on religion spirituality and matters of the colon you can use this text to wipe mathew
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts in article n hy apr harder ccr p ida org n hy harder ccr p ida org bob mcgwier writes however i hate economic terrorism and political correctness worse than i hate this policy a more effective approach is to stop donating to any organizating that directly or indirectly supports gay rights issues until they end the boycott on funding of scouts can somebody reconcile the apparent contradiction between and rob strom strom watson ibm com ibm research saw mill river road p o box yorktown heights ny
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes didn t you say lucifer was created with a perfect nature yes define perfect then i think you are playing the usual game here make sweeping statements like omni holy or perfect and don t note that they mean exactly what they say and that says that you must not use this terms when it leads to contradictions i m not trying to play games here but i understand how it might seem that way especially when one is coming from a completely different point of view such as atheism take your foot out of your mouth i wondered about that already when i was a catholic christian the fact that the contradiction is unresolvable is one of the reasons why i am an atheist believe me i believed similar sentences for a long time but that shows the power of religion and not anything about its claims now god could have prevented lucifer s fall by taking away his ability to choose between moral alternatives worship god or worship himself but that would mean that god was in error to have make lucifer or any being with free will in the first place exactly god allows evil an evil if there ever was one now that s an opinion or at best a premise but from my point of view it is not a premise which is necessary true specifically that it is an evil to allow evil to occur it follows from a definition of evil as ordinarily used letting evil happen or allowing evil to take place in this place even causing evil is another evil but could you give a definition of free will especially in the presence of an omniscient being will is self determination in other words god created conscious beings who have the ability to choose between moral choices independently of god all will therefore is free will the omniscient attribute of god will know what the creatures will do even before the omnipotent has created them there is no choice left all is known the course of events is fixed not even for the omniscient itself to extend an argument by james tims if god is omniscient then clearly creating beings with free moral choice is a greater good than the emergence of ungodliness evil sin since he created them knowing the outcome in advance why is it the greater good to allow evil with the knowledge that it will happen why not make a unipolar system with the possibility of doing good or not doing good but that does not necessarily imply doing evil it is logically possible but your god has not done it i do not know that such is logically possible if god restrains a free being s choice to choose to do evil and simply do not good then can it be said that the being truly has a free moral choice and if good is defined as loving and obeying god and avoiding those behaviors which god prohibits then how can you say that one who is not good is not evil as well like i said i am not sure that doing not good without doing evil is logically possible and when i am not omnipotent how can i have free will you have said something about choices and the scenario gives them therefore we have what you define as free will imagine the following i can do good to other beings but i cannot harm them easily implemented by making everyone appreciate being the object of good deeds but don t make them long for them so they can not feel the absence of good as evil but whose case am i arguing it is conceivable so the omnipotent can do it or it would not be omnipotent if you want logically consistent as well you have to give up the pet idea of an omnipotent first deletion perhaps it is weak in a way if i were just speculating about the ubiquitous pink unicorns then there would be no basis for such speculation but this idea of god didn t just fall on me out of the blue or while reading science fiction or fantasy i know that some will disagree the bible describes a god who is omniscient and nevertheless created beings with free moral choice from which the definitional logic follows but that s not all there is to it there seems to be at least in my mind a certain amount of evidence which indicates that god exists and that the biblical description of him may be a fair one it is that evidence which bolsters the argument in my view that the bible describes an omniscient and omnipotent god destroys the credibility of the bible nothing less and a lot of people would be interested in evidence for a god unfortunately there can t be any with these definitions benedikt
alt.atheism	re political atheists arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes the motto originated in the star spangled banner tell me that this has something to do with atheists the motto on coins originated as a mccarthyite smear which equated atheism with communism and called both unamerican no it didn t the motto has been on various coins since the civil war it was just required to be on all currency in the s keith
alt.atheism	re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes when they are victimized they are muslims when they victimize others they are not true muslims tm or no muslims at all quite annoying i don t understand the point of this petty sarcasm it is a basic principle of islam that if one is born muslim or one says i testify that there is no god but god and mohammad is a prophet of god that so long as one does not explicitly reject islam by word then one must be considered muslim by all muslims so the phenomenon you re attempting to make into a general rule or psychology is a direct odds with basic islamic principles if you want to attack islam you could do better than than to argue against something that islam explicitly contradicts it was no criticism of islam for a change it was a criticism of the arguments used namely whenever people you identify as muslims are the victims of the attacks of others they are used an argument for the bad situation of muslims but whenever deeds by muslim that victimize others are named they do not count as an argument because what these people did was not done as a true muslims no mention is made how muslims are the cause of a bad situation of another party double standards benedikt
alt.atheism	re political atheists reference line trimmed livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes there is a good deal more confusion here you started off with the assertion that there was some objective morality and as you admit here you finished up with a recursive definition murder is objectively immoral but eactly what is murder and what is not itself requires an appeal to morality yes now you have switch targets a little but only a little now you are asking what is the goal what do you mean by goal are you suggesting that there is some objective goal out there somewhere and we form our morals to achieve it well for example the goal of natural morality is the survival and propogation of the species another example of a moral system is presented within the declaration of independence which states that we should be guaranteed life liberty and the pursuit of happiness you see to have a moral system we must define the purpose of the system that is we shall be moral unto what end murder is certainly a violation of the golden rule and i thought i had defined murder as an intentional killing of a non murderer against his will and you responded to this by asking whether or not the execution of an innocent person under our system of capital punishment was a murder or not i fail to see what this has to do with anything i never claimed that our system of morality was an objective one i thought that was your very first claim that there was some kind of objective morality and that an example of that was that murder is wrong if you don t want to claim that any more that s fine well murder violates the golen rule which is certainly a pillar of most every moral system however i am not assuming that our current system and the manner of its implementation are objectively moral i think that it is a very good approximation but we can t be perfect and by the way you don t seem to understand the difference between arbitrary and objective if keith schneider defines murder to be this that and the other that s arbitrary jon livesey may still say well according to my personal system of morality all killing of humans against their will is murder and wrong and what the legal definition of murder may be in the usa kuweit saudi arabia or the prc may be matters not a whit to me well objective would assume a system based on clear and fundamental concepts while arbitary implies no clear line of reasoning keith
alt.atheism	re pompous ass kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes then why do people keep asking the same questions over and over because you rarely ever answer them nope i ve answered each question posed and most were answered multiple times keith
alt.atheism	re pompous ass livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes how long does it the motto have to stay around before it becomes the default where s the cutoff point i don t know where the exact cutoff is but it is at least after a few years and surely after years why does the notion of default not take into account changes in population makeup specifically which changes are you talking about are you arguing that the motto is interpreted as offensive by a larger portion of the population now than years ago keith
alt.atheism	re keith schneider stealth poster sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes to borrow from philosophy you don t truly understand the color red until you have seen it not true even if you have experienced the color red you still might have a different interpretation of it but you wouldn t know what red was and you certainly couldn t judge it subjectively and objectivity is not applicable since you are wanting to discuss the merits of red keith
alt.atheism	re keith schneider stealth poster arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes but if you were to discuss the merits of racism or its psycholgical benefits you would do well to have experienced it personally when you speak of experiencing religion you mean someone should believe in a religion that s right and this is pretty impossible right it would be ideal if we could believe for a while just to try out religion and only then determine which course of thought suits us best but again this is not possible not that religion warrants belief but the belief carries with it some psychological benefits there are also some psychological burdens too when you speak of experiencing racism do you mean that someone should believe in racism or that they should have racist things done to them for parallelism the former must be what you meant but it seems to be an odd usage of the phrase well if there were some psychological or other benefits gained from racism they could only be fully understood or judged by persons actually believing in racism of course the parallel happens to be a poor one but you originated it keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes but you don t know that capital punishment is wrong so it isn t the same as shooting a better analogy would be that you continue to drive your car realizing that sooner or later someone is going to be killed in an automobile accident you know people get killed as a result of driving yet you continue to do it anyway uh uh you do not know that you will be the one to do the killing i m not sure i d drive a car if i had sufficient evidence to conclude that i would necessarily kill someone during my lifetime yes and everyone thinks as you do no one thinks that he is going to cause or be involved in a fatal accident but the likelihood is surprisingly high just because you are the man on the firing squad whose gun is shooting blanks does not mean that you are less guilty i don t know about jon but i say all taking of human life is murder and i say murder is wrong in all but one situation when it is the only action that will prevent another murder either of myself or another you mean that killing is wrong in all but one situtation and you should note that that situation will never occur there are always other options thank killing why don t you just say that all killing is wrong this is basically what you are saying i m getting a bit tired of your probabilistic arguments are you attempting to be condescending that the system usually works pretty well is small consolation to the poor innocent bastard getting the lethal injection is your personal value of human life based solely on a statistical approach you sound like an unswerving adherent to the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few so fuck the few but most people have found the risk to be acceptable you are probably much more likely to die in a plane crash or even using an electric blender than you are to be executed as an innocent i personally think that the risk is acceptable but in an ideal moral system no such risk is acceptable acceptable is the fudge factor necessary in such an approximation to the ideal keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes i think that about or so people approve of the death penalty even realizing all of its shortcomings doesn t this make it reasonable or are you the sole judge of reasonability aside from revenge what merits do you find in capital punishment are we talking about me or the majority of the people that support it anyway i think that revenge or fairness is why most people are in favor of the punishment if a murderer is going to be punished people that think that he should get what he deserves most people wouldn t think it would be fair for the murderer to live while his victim died revenge petty and pathetic perhaps you think that it is petty and pathetic but your views are in the minority we have a local televised hot topic talk show that very recently did a segment on capital punishment each and every advocate of the use of this portion of our system of jurisprudence cited the main reason for supporting it that bastard deserved it true human compassion forgiveness and sympathy where are we required to have compassion forgiveness and sympathy if someone wrongs me i will take great lengths to make sure that his advantage is removed or a similar situation is forced upon him if someone kills another then we can apply the golden rule and kill this person in turn is not our entire moral system based on such a concept or are you stating that human life is sacred somehow and that it should never be violated this would sound like some sort of religious view i mean how reasonable is imprisonment really when you think about it sure the person could be released if found innocent but you still can t undo the imiprisonment that was served perhaps we shouldn t imprision people if we could watch them closely instead the cost would probably be similar especially if we just implanted some sort of electronic device would you rather be alive in prison or dead in the chair once a criminal has committed a murder his desires are irrelevant and you still have not answered my question if you are concerned about the death penalty due to the possibility of the execution of an innocent then why isn t this same concern shared with imprisonment shouldn t we by your logic administer as minimum as punishment as possible to avoid violating the liberty or happiness of an innocent person keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes if i kill this person an innocent person convicted of murder then a murder would be committed but i would not be the murderer at least i wouldn t reasonably be considered a murderer with reasonable being introduced as a fudge factor necessary to account for the inability to be totally objective due to a lack of absolutely true information if society collective decides to carry the burden of executing it s citizens then it also carries the blame for their innocent blood each and every voter who casts a ballot in favor of capital punishment is in part guilty of the murder of each and every innocent victim of the system why are only those people in favor of the system to blame if society accepts such a system then each member of society is to blame when an innocent person gets executed those that are not in favor should work to convince others and most members of our society have accepted the blame they ve considered the risk to be acceptable similarly every person who drives must accept the blame for fatal traffic accidents this is something that is surely going to happen when so many people are driving it is all a question of what risk is acceptable it is much more likely that an innocent person will be killed driving than it is that one will be executed keith
alt.atheism	re don t more innocents die without the death penalty in article p psilink com p psilink com james f tims writes by maintaining classes d and e even in prison it seems as if we place more innocent people at a higher risk of an unjust death than we would if the state executed classes d and e with an occasional error i answer from the position that we would indeed place these people in prison for life that depends not only on their predisposition towards murder but also in their success rate at escape and therefore their ability to commit the same crimes again in other words if lifetime imprisonment doesn t work perhaps it s not because we re not executing these people but because we re not being careful enough about how we lock them up bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re ancient islamic rituals in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes i propose that these two trends greater level of general depression in society and other psychological problems and greater sexual promiscuity are linked with the latter being a prime cause of the former i cannot provide any evidence beyond this at this stage but the whole thesis seems very reasonable to me and i request that people ponder upon it damn right you can t provide any evidence for it rarely are any widespread social phenomenon reducible to such a simple premise if they were psychology would be a hard science with roughly the same mathematical soundness as physics your premise may well be right it is much more likely however that it reflects your socialization and religious background as well as your need to validate your religious beliefs were i to pretend to have all the answers and i don t i would say that the xenophobia guilt and intolerance brought about by adherence to fundamentalist religions play just as large a role in depressing the members of our society your mileage obviously varies bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article apr blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes in article pj bs d j fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i would say that one innocent person killed is in some sense as bad as many we certainly feel that way when we punish someone for a single murder now if we reform system x by reducing the number of deaths by one we produce system xx i d say we should not go back to system x even though by doing so we would re introduce only a single extra death bob seems to think that one is as bad as many in a sense somewhat stronger than the one you indicate yes i do my argument is that the sole purpose of the death penalty is to kill people that is it s primary and i would argue only purpose to continue to kill people by a practice that has almost no utility especially when you know you will be killing innocents is unconscionable at the very least the existence of the prison system and our transportation system are based on their merits to society not their detriments we are willing to accept a few lost innocent lives because there is an overwhelming benefit to the continued existence of these systems one has to stretch the evidence and the arguments to make the same claim for capital punishment just in case i wasn t clear again we maintain a capital punsihment system that kills innocent people and provides us with no net positive gain why were you to pin me in a corner and ask i would have to respond that i don t belief the state should have the right to take life at all but i won t open that debate as it seems others are tiring of this thread on a a anyway bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re there must be a creator maybe in article ba e drporter suvm syr edu drporter suvm syr edu brad porter writes science is wonderful at answering most of our questions i m not the type to question scientific findings very often but personally i find the theory of evolution to be unfathomable could humans a highly evolved complex organism that thinks learns and develops truly be an organism that resulted from random genetic mutations and natural selection stuff deleted computers are an excellent example of evolution without a creator we did not create computers we did not create the sand that goes into the silicon that goes into the integrated circuits that go into processor board we took these things and put them together in an interesting way just like plants create oxygen using light through photosynthesis it s a much bigger leap to talk about something that created everything from nothing i find it unfathomable to resort to believing in a creator when a much simpler alternative exists we simply are incapable of understanding our beginnings if there even were beginnings at all and that s ok with me the present keeps me perfectly busy jim halat
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution in article j l rpi edu johnsd jec its rpi edu dan johnson writes in article io maine maine edu io maine maine edu writes dan johnson you don t know me but take this hand anyway bravo for go ds beautiful simply beautiful jim halat
alt.atheism	re speculations in article w rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes nanci ann miller nm w andrew cmu edu writes if this god is truly omnipotent as you folks like to claim then why can t he terminate eternity for the same reason he can t flibble glop ork groink the thing you are demanding that he must be able to do has no meaning in its own terms this is a classic example of excessive faith in reason the fact that we have trouble talking about something doesn t imply that it is impossible it simply implies that it is hard to talk about there is a very good chance that god can flibble glop ork groink charlie wingate can flibble glop ork groink and he isn t even god doug graham dgraham bnr ca my opinions are my own
alt.atheism	re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes much though it might be fun to debate capital punishment itself this is probably the wrong group for it the only relevance here is that you don t seem to be able to tell us what capital punishment actually is and when it is murder that is when you tell us murder is wrong you are using a term you have not yet defined well i ve said that when an innocent person has been executed this is objectively a murder however who is at blame is another question it seems that the entire society that sanctions any sorts of executions realizing the risks is to blame there is a probability of killing an innocent person by shooting at random into the air and there is a probability of killing an innocent person when the state administers a system of capital punishment so when you do either you know that they actions you are taking will sooner or later result in the killing of an innocent person yes but there is also a probablity that you will kill someone doing any raondom activity presumably you had not isolated yourself totally from the rest of society because of this and driving will kill people as will airlines but people continue to do both driving and flying are not punishments inflicted on unwilling prisoners by courts they are risks that we take upon ourselves willingly and i argue that our law system is a similar risk perhaps an innocent person will be punished someday but we work to prevent this in fact many criminals go free as a result of our trying to prevent punishment of innocents if our own driving kills someone else then sure there is a moral issue i know at least one person who was involved in a fatal accident and they felt vey guilty afterwards but such accidents are to be totally expected given the numner of vehicals on the road again the blame is on society no i m not this is what you said you were saying that if there were such a false witness that resulted in an innocent person being convicted and killed it would still be the fault of the state since it did the actual killing no i just commented that the state does the killing it does not depend on there being false witnesses how could it the state does the killing even in the case of sincere mistakes yes but the state is not at fault in such a case the state can only do so much to prevent false witnesses it is possible so what are you trying to say that capital punishment is always murder because of the possibilty of human error invalidating the system i m saying capital punishment is murder period not because of this that and the other but because it involves taking human life that s my definition of murder i make no appeals to dictionaries or to objective morals okay so this is what you call murder but the question is whether or not all such murders are wrong are you saying that all taking of human life is wrong no matter what the circumstances if we as a society decide to murder someone then we should say that and lists our reasons for doing so and live with the moral consequences we should not play word games and pretend that murder isn t murder and that s my opinion about how society ought to be run but this is basically how it works society accepts the risk that an innocent person will be murdered by execution and every member of society shares this blame and most people s definitions of murder include some sort of malicious intent which is not involved in an execution is it but we were trying to discuss an objective moral system or at least its possibilty what ramifications does your personal system have on an objective one no we were not discussing an objective moral system i was showing you that you didn t have one because for one thing you were incapable of defining the terms in it for example murder murder violates the golden rule executions do not because by allowing it at all society implicitly accepts the consequences no matter who the innocent victim is we re not talking about reading minds we are just talking about knowing the truth yes we can never be absolutely certain that we have the truth but the court systems work on a principle of knowing the truth beyond a reasonable doubt sorry but you simply are not quoting yourself accurately here is what you said and since we are looking totally objectively at this case then we know what people are thinking when they are voting to execute the person or not if the intent is malicious and unfair then the execution would be murder what you are doing now is to slide into another claim which is quite different the jury being persuaded beyond a serious doubt is not the same as us knowing what is in their minds beyond a serious doubt reading the minds of the jury would certainly tell whether or not a conviction was moral or not but in an objective system only the absolute truth matters and the jury system is one method to approximate such a truth that is twelve members must be convinced of a truth moreover a jury which comes from a sufficiently prejudiced background may allow itself to be persuaded beyond a serious doubt on evidence that you and i would laugh at but then if we read the minds of these people we would know that the conviction was unfair but would it be perfectly fair if we could read minds if we assume that it would be fair if we knew the absolute truth why is it so much less fair in your opinion if we only have a good approximation of the absolute truth it s not a question of fairness your claim which i have quoted above is a claim about whether we can know it was fair so as to be able to distinguish capital punishnment from murder yes while we could objectively determine the difference if we knew all possible information we can t always determine the difference in our flawed system i think that our system is almost as good as possible but it still isn t objectively perfect you see it doesn t matter if we know it is fair or not objectively it is either fair or it is not now there s a huge difference if we can read minds we can know and if we cannot read minds we can know nothing the difference is not in degree of fairness but in what we can know but what we know has no effect on an objective system i think it is possible to produce a fairly objective system if we are clear on which goals it is supposed to promote i m not going to waste my time trying to devise a system that i am pretty sure does not exist why are you so sure i simply want people to confront reality my reality remember why is your reality important in this case the reality is that ideal theories apart we can never know even after the fact about the fairness of the justice system for every innocent person released from death row there may have been a dozen innocent people executed or a hundred or none at all we simply don t know but we can assume that the system is fairly decent at least most likely and you realize that the correctness of our system says nothing about a totally ideal and objective system now what are we going to do on the one hand we can pretend that we have an ideal theory and that we can know things we can never know and the justie system is fair and that we can wave a magic wand and make certain types of killing not murder and go on our way well we can have an ideal system but the working system can not be ideal we can only hope to create a system that is as close an approximation to the ideal system as possible on the other hand we can recognize that all justice has a small we hope probability of punishing the innocent and that in the end we do bear moral responsibility even for the probabilistic consequences of the systems we set up and then say well here we go murdering again maybe some of us will even say gee i wonder if all this is strictly necessary yes we all bear the responsibility most people seem willing to do this i think that the second is preferable in that if requires people to face the moral consequences of what we do as a society instead of sheltering ourselves from them by magic ceremonies and word games we must realize the consequences of all our actions why do you keep separating the justice system from the pack and lest i forget i also don t think we have an objective moral system and i believe i only have to take that idea seriously when someone presents evidence of it i don t think our country has an objective system but i think such an objective system can exist in theory without omniscience an objective system is not possible in practice keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes now along comes mr keith schneider and says here is an objective moral system and then i start to ask him about the definitions that this objective system depends on and predictably the whole thing falls apart it only falls apart if you attempt to apply it this doesn t mean that an objective system can t exist it just means that one cannot be implemented keith
alt.atheism	re university violating separation of church state in article aa kepler unh edu dmn kepler unh edu until kings become philosophers or philosophers become kings writes recently ras have been ordered and none have resisted or cared about it apparently to post a religious flyer entitled the soul scroll thoughts on religion spirituality and matters of the soul on the inside of bathroom stall doors at my school the university of new hampshire it is some sort of newsletter assembled by a hall director somewhere on campus most of post deleted please respond as soon as possible i d like these religious postings to stop now thanks dana there is an easy way out post the flyers on the stall doors but add at the bottom in nice large capitals emergency toilet paper robert mellish fog ic uk email r mellish ic ac uk net rm sg cc ic ac uk irc hobnob and also the mrs joyful prize for rafia work
alt.atheism	re usatoday ad family values in article c rzz j unix portal com danb shell portal com dan e babcock writes there was a funny ad in usatoday from american family association i ll post a few choice parts for your enjoyment all emphases is in the ad i m not adding anything all the typos are mine dan s article deleted i found the same add in our local sunday newspaper the add was placed in the cartoon section the perfect place for it y k
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes my claim is that a person that committs a crime doesn t believe in god for the moment that the crime is committed at least whether they are originally believers or not to believe is to do good your statistics indicate people that have declared atheism and doubtless when an atheist does an act of charity they temporarily become a baptist jon
alt.atheism	re ancient islamic rituals in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes i propose that these two trends greater level of general depression in society and other psychological problems and greater sexual promiscuity are linked with the latter being a prime cause of the former i cannot provide any evidence beyond this at this stage but the whole thesis seems very reasonable to me and i request that people ponder upon it i pondered it for all of ten seconds when i realised that since we don t have any reliable statistics for sexual promiscuity and since the whole issue of depression isn t at all well defined for earlier centuries you are probably talking crap of course you could pull a mozumder on us and say that people who are having sex outside marriage are defined to be depressed i can t say i d ever noticed myself jon
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts in article apr cbnewsl cb att com stank cbnewsl cb att com stan krieger writes now can we please use rec scouting for the purpose for which it was established clearly we netnews voters decided that we did not want to provide a scouting newsgroup to give fringe groups a forum for their anti societal political views ok this is the only thing i will comment on from stan at this time part of this forum we call rec scouting is for policy discussions and related topics this is a policy discussion and involves related topics this is not a fringe group discussion obviously it engenders strong feelings from all sides of the issues at hand wether a particular view is anti societal or not is your opinion and yours alone don t try to make it seem otherwise if you do not wish to engage in this discussion use a kill file if you wish to continue in this discussion please do so knowing full well the implications that apply i know for myself that i plan on continuing with the discussion when i have the wish to have input i for one am tired of people trying to say that this is not a matter significant for this group it is and quite so especially for those of us who feel the impact more closely dominick v zurlo if the world s an www oyster why am i eagle scout allergic to mollusks blacklisted
alt.atheism	re political atheists mathew mathew mantis co uk writes as for rape surely there the burden of guilt is solely on the rapist not so if you are thrown into a cage with a tiger and get mauled do you blame the tiger keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists mathew mathew mantis co uk writes perhaps we shouldn t imprision people if we could watch them closely instead the cost would probably be similar especially if we just implanted some sort of electronic device why wait until they commit the crime why not implant such devices in potential criminals like communists and atheists sorry i don t follow your reasoning you are proposing to punish people before they commit a crime what justification do you have for this keith
alt.atheism	re enviroleague a new alternative to scouting for those unacceptable to bsa for reasons of religious or sexual preference from boyd r critz iii compuserve com subject enviroleague birth announcement on march from earth forum compuserve information service formal announcement sm enviroleague a new youth movement enviroleague was recently born according to its founder boyd r critz iii cis id of peoria illinois enviroleague exists for the education of youth both male and female in matters concerning their values related to and responsibility for our environment incorporated as an illinois not for profit corporation its articles and initial applications for a service mark have now been filed according to critz its draft bylaws contain the following statement of mission and objectives mission it is the mission of enviroleague and its adult members to foster and implement the improved education of young people in the need to conduct their lives as stewards of the earth to leave the earth in a better condition than they found it and to otherwise act as responsible moral and ethical users of their environment to pursue the accomplishment of this mission enviroleague shall seek to serve as a catalyst focusing in common cause the separate efforts of all groups desiring the preservation improvement and responsible use of the environment in which we must all live objectives in pursuit of the mission of enviroleague its primary objectives shall be to establish a movement involving as many environmentally concerned organizations as possible said movement having as its primary focus the education and participatory involvement of young people in appropriate areas of environmental concern to develop and provide to such organizations and their branches a full complement of program materials for their use including suitable uniforms insignia and other badges written ideas syllabi and information literature and other items as shall seem appropriate and desirable to serve as a clearing house for the exchange of program ideas materials and information among said organizations and to assist environmentally concerned organizations to recruit and train the necessary adult leadership for their youth programs enviroleague will operate through three program divisions serving youth in the elementary middle and high school grades respectively service shall be through formation of enviroleague teams either by enviroleague itself or by environmentally conscious organizations or their local branches wishing a charter to use programs developed by enviroleague enviroleague as it develops will be controlled by the actual adult leaders of each local team and will have no nationally imposed obstacles to membership or adult leadership status not based upon relevant improper conduct organizations accepting a charter may however impose certain additional standards for their own use of the program material should such organizations do so enviroleague will commit itself to forming as soon as possible new nearby teams having no such restrictions particularly as to youth membership enviroleague will operate on the principle that youth will have much to contribute to developing its programs thus the top youth leaders of its teams for middle and high school youth may become involved in governing any local administrative groups and those for its high school youth may be involved in similar functions at the national level program materials are in development at this time copies of the draft portions of the mentor s manual manual for adult leadership will be in the earth forum library these files will be updated as development takes place compuserve is particularly proud that enviroleague s founder chose this electronic medium to make the first public announcement of its formation this announcement is being made simultaneously in both the outdoor and earth forums the electronic home of enviroleague is in compuserve s earth forum go earth message and library areas both named enviroleague subsequently enviroleague s initial governance council has held its first meeting boyd critz was elected as the first enviroleague chief guardian equivalent to chairman of the board or ceo he can be reached at home in case of real need also mail can be addressed to enviroleague p o box peoria il those interested in starting an enviroleague team might just establish contact to receive a diskette ibm dos ascii with initial information cdt rocket sw stratus com if you believe that i speak for my company or cdt vos stratus com write today for my special investors packet
alt.atheism	idle questions for fellow atheists i wonder how many atheists out there care to speculate on the face of the world if atheists were the majority rather than the minority group of the population it is rather a ridiculous question in some ways i know but my newsreader is down so i am not getting any new postings for a bit so i figure i might as well post something new myself also how many atheists out there would actually take the stance and accor a higher value to their way of thinking over the theistic way of thinking the typical selfish argument would be that both lines of thinking evolved from the same inherent motivation so one is not intrinsically different from the other qualitatively but then again a measuring stick must be drawn somewhere and if we cannot assign value to a system of beliefs at its core than the only other alternative is to apply it to its periphery ie how it expresses its own selfishness idle thoughts adam adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution in article apr dcs warwick ac uk simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale writes deleted over on alt atheism we tend to recognise two categories of atheism function format due to mathew mantis co uk i think i weak not believe gods ii strong believe not gods deleted i am a strong atheist and i must quibble with your assertion that the strong position requires faith i believe that no god s as commonly described by theists exist this belief is merely an opinion formed on the basis of observation including a certain amount of introspection i fully accept that i could be wrong and will be swayed by suitably convincing evidence thus while i believe that no gods exist this does not imply faith on my part that it is so let me first say that to believe that no gods exist is in fact different than not believing in a god or gods i will argue that your latter statement i believe that no gods exist does rest upon faith that is if you are making a positive statement that no gods exist strong atheism rather than merely saying i don t know and therefore don t believe in them and don t not believe in then weak atheism once again to not believe in god is different than saying i believe that god does not exist i still maintain the position even after reading the faqs that strong atheism requires faith but first let me say the following we might have a language problem here in regards to faith and existence i as a christian maintain that god does not exist to exist means to have being in space and time god does not have being god is being kierkegaard once said that god does not exist he is eternal with this said i feel it s rather pointless to debate the so called existence of god and that is not what i m doing here i believe that god is the source and ground of being when you say that god does not exist i also accept this statement but we obviously mean two different things by it however in what follows i will use the phrase the existence of god in it s usual sense and this is the sense that i think you are using it i would like a clarification upon what you mean by the existence of god we also might differ upon what it means to have faith here is what webster says faith a allegiance to duty or a person loyalty b fidelity to one s promises sincerity of intentions a belief and trust in and loyalty to god belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b firm belief in something for which there is no proof complete trust something that is believed esp with strong conviction esp a system of religious beliefs syn see belief one can never prove that god does or does not exist when you say that you believe god does not exist and that this is an opinion based upon observation i will have to ask what observtions are you refering to there are no observations pro or con that are valid here in establishing a positive belief all observations can only point you in a direction a direction that we might even be predisposed to by predisposed i mean for example people whoes partents believe in god also tend to to actually draw a conclusion about the existence or non existence of god requires a leap and you have made this leap when you actively say i believe that god does does not exist personally i think that both statements are misguided arguing over the existence of god is precisely the wrong way to find him and yes i use him because a personal god is the only viable concept imo if a person wants to use she go ahead of course god is neither he nor she but we have no choice but to anthropomorphise if you want me to explain myself further i ll be glad to and please if someone does not agree with me even if they violently disagree it s in no ones advantage to start name calling if a person thinks i ve misunderstood something in the faqs or if they they think i have not read them well enough just point out to me the error of my ways and i correct the situation i m interested in a polite and well thought out discussion cheers simon simon clippingdale simon dcs warwick ac uk department of computer science tel university of warwick fax coventry cv al u k bob singleton bobs thnext mit edu
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes more horrible deaths resulted from atheism than anything else there are definitely quite a few horrible deaths as the result of both atheists and theists i m sure bobby can list quite a few for the atheist side but fails to recognize that the theists are equally proficient at genocide perhaps since i m a bit weak on history somone here would like to give a list of wars caused led by theists i can think of a few hitler claimed to be a christian for example but a more complete list would probably be more effective in showing bobby just how absurd his statement is peace on a side note i notice you always sign your posts peace perhaps you should take your own advice and leave the atheists in peace with their beliefs bobby mozumder nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others
alt.atheism	re dear mr theist west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes means to me the full quote michael crichton jurrasic park was something like the earth has existed quite contently for billions of years we have been here but for the blink of an eye and if we were gone tomorrow the earth would not miss us i remember this quote to keep myself humble when thinking that we have progressed so far or that we are masters of this planet cool quote the earth doesn t need saving it s existed quite happily with out us we are the ones who need saving better watch it the theists will jump on you for that brian west this is not a sig file to the earth we have been this is not a sig file here but for the blink of an ok so it s a sig file eye if we were gone tomorrow posted by west wam umd edu we would not be missed who doesn t care who knows it jurassic park diclaimer i said this i meant this nobody made me do it nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others
alt.atheism	re political atheists my turn to jump in in article pi h innq gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes reference line trimmed livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes there is a good deal more confusion here you started off with the assertion that there was some objective morality and as you admit here you finished up with a recursive definition murder is objectively immoral but eactly what is murder and what is not itself requires an appeal to morality i think you mean circular not recursive but that is semantics recursiveness has no problems it is just horribly inefficient just ask any assembly programmer yes now you have switch targets a little but only a little now you are asking what is the goal what do you mean by goal are you suggesting that there is some objective goal out there somewhere and we form our morals to achieve it well for example the goal of natural morality is the survival and propogation of the species another example of a moral system is presented within the declaration of independence which states that we should be guaranteed life liberty and the pursuit of happiness you see to have a moral system we must define the purpose of the system that is we shall be moral unto what end the oft quoted line that says people should be guaranteed life liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights is a complete lie and deception as the very authors of that line were in the process of proving liberty is never free it is always purchased at some cost almost always at the cost to another whos liberty is more inalienable similarly for right of life when one person must die if he is to save another or even a group of others whos life is more inalienable that leads into the classic question of the value of the death penalty especially for serial killers whos life and liberty is more valuable the serial killer or the victim according to that beautiful line those two rights should be completely inviolate that is noone should be able to remove them this includes government admittedly the serial killer has restricted some people s life and or liberty but is not his own life liberty inviolate also according to the declaration of independence it is murder is certainly a violation of the golden rule and i thought i had defined murder as an intentional killing of a non murderer against his will oooh i like that it means that killing an infant is not murder because it cannot be against its will reason an infant has no will as such similarly for people who are brain dead easier to see in a coma etc also under current law accidental killing is still murder how will you include that and you responded to this by asking whether or not the execution of an innocent person under our system of capital punishment was a murder or not i fail to see what this has to do with anything i never claimed that our system of morality was an objective one i thought that was your very first claim that there was some kind of objective morality and that an example of that was that murder is wrong if you don t want to claim that any more that s fine the only real golden rule in life is he who has the gold makes the rules i e might makes right that is survival now what is wrong with that well murder violates the golen rule which is certainly a pillar of most every moral system however i am not assuming that our current system and the manner of its implementation are objectively moral i think that it is a very good approximation but we can t be perfect if you mean the golden rule as i stated yes almost every system as implemented has used that in reality sorry i don t deal as much in fiction as i do in reality and by the way you don t seem to understand the difference between arbitrary and objective if keith schneider defines murder to be this that and the other that s arbitrary jon livesey may still say well according to my personal system of morality all killing of humans against their will is murder and wrong and what the legal definition of murder may be in the usa kuweit saudi arabia or the prc may be matters not a whit to me welcome to ozland what is not arbitrary if you can find some part of society some societal rules morals etc that are not arbitrary please tell me i don t think there are any well objective would assume a system based on clear and fundamental concepts while arbitary implies no clear line of reasoning keith sounds like euphemisms to me the difference seems to be that objective is some reasoning that i like while arbitrary is some reasoning that i don t like or don t understand m
alt.atheism	re radical agnostic not the one and only jcopelan nyx cs du edu wrote in article dl m bgsu edu dl andy bgsu edu pixie writes first post i ve seen from the ol bug zoo bgsu there is no means that i can possibly think of to prove beyond doubt that a god does not exist but if anyone has one by all means tell me what it is therefore lacking this ability of absolute proof being an atheist becomes an act of faith in and of itself and this i cannot accept i accept nothing on blind faith invisible pink flying unicorns need i say more there is also the question of what is meant by atheist a familiar example of the importance of the meaning of the word is as follows the two statements following are consistent i do not believe that you are wearing lilac socks i do not believe that you are are not wearing lilac socks the two statements following are not consistent i do believe that you are wearing lilac socks i do believe that you are are not wearing lilac socks statements and require no faith they make no presumptions about the nature of reality statements and require belief many atheists myself included take the following position i do not believe that there is a god i do not believe that there is not a god that is i harbor no beliefs at all there is no good evidence for god existing or not some folks call this agnosticism it does not suffer from blind faith at all i think of it as don t worry be happy
alt.atheism	so what is maddi as i was created in the image of gaea therefore i must be the pinnacle of creation she which creates she which births she which continues or to cut all the religious crap i m a woman thanks and it s sexism that started me on the road to atheism maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com centigram communications corp san jose california kids please don t try this at home remember i post professionally
alt.atheism	re the wrong and the right in article e trmetu bitnet e trmetu bitnet writes hi i m a turkish guy who had tried atheism satenism and buddism at some instant s of hislife finally i decided on islambecause of many facts which i intend to write here from my point of view you atheists are people who has dropped to a deep dark well and thinking the only reality is the dusty walls of the well but if you had looked a little bit upward you would see the blue skies you dsee t he truth but you close your eyes allah is the only god and mohammed is his mess ager now let s generate some entropy in means of theology and thermodynamics w hat s your point of view to the problem of the first kiss that is the first spark which was generated for the formation of the universe has it formed by i tself you are bothering yourselves with the big bang but where is the first spa rk please think a bit think and return to the only reality of the universe isla m uh oh this looks a bit too much like bobby s atheism is false stuff are we really going to have to go through this again maybe the universe is cyclical brendan dunn
alt.atheism	re political atheists bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes and in the us even that argument doesn t stand it costs far more to execute a criminal in this country than it does to feed clothe and shelter them for the remainder of their natural life some people believe this is a fault of our judicial system i find it to be one of it s greatest virtues i assume that you are talking about the appeals processes etc well it should be noted that people who are imprisoned for life will also tend to appeal though not quite as much in the final hours anyway economics is not a very good reason to either favor or oppose the punishment keith
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution in article apr skyblu ccit arizona edu lippard skyblu ccit arizona edu james j lippard writes in article mar juliet caltech edu lmh juliet caltech edu henling lawrence m writes atheism greek a not theos god belief that there is no god agnosticism greek a not gnostein know belief that it is not possible to determine if there is a god no agnosticism as you have here defined it is a positive belief a belief that it is not possible to determine the existence of any gods that s a belief i m inclined to reject you have also defined atheism here as a positive belief that there is no god a fairly large number of atheists on alt atheism reject this definition instead holding that atheism is simply the absence of belief in a god michael martin in atheism a philosophical justification distinguishes strong atheism my mistake i will have to get a newer dictionary and read the follow up line larry henling lmh shakes caltech edu
alt.atheism	re political atheists reference line trimmed ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu scott d sauyet writes first i ll make the assumption that you agree that a murderer is one who has commited murder well i d say that a murderer is one who intentionally committed a murder for instance if you put a bullet into a gun that was thought to contain blanks and someone was killed with such a gun the person who actually performed the action isn t the murderer but i guess this is actually made clear in the below definition i d be interested to see a more reasonable definition what do you mean by reasonable otherwise your inductive definition doesn t bottom out your definition in essence is that murder is the intentional killing of someone who has not commited murder against his will expanding the second occurence of murder in the above we see that yes it is bad to include the word being defined in the definition but even though the series is recursively infinite i think the meaning can still be deduced i assume you can see the problem here to do a correct inductive definition you must define something in terms of a simpler case and you must have one or several bottoming out cases for instance we can define the factorial function the function which assigns to a positive integer the product of the positive integers less than or equal to it on the positive integers inductively as follows math lesson deleted okay let s look at this situation suppose there is a longstanding feud between two families which claim that the other committed some travesty in the distant past each time a member of the one family kills a member of the other the other family thinks that it is justified in killing a that member of the first family now let s suppose that this sequence has occurred an infinite number of times or if you don t like dealing with infinities suppose that one member of the family goes back into time and essentially begins the whole thing that is there is a never ending loop of slayings based on some non existent travesty how do you resolve this well they are all murders now i suppose that this isn t totally applicable to your problem but it still is possible to reduce an uninduced system and in any case the nested murderer in the definition of murder cannot be infintely recursive given the finite existence of humanity and a murder cannot be committed without a killing involved so the first person to intentionally cause someone to get killed is necessarily a murderer is this enough of an induction to solve the apparently unreducable definition see in a totally objective system where all the information is available such a nested definition isn t really a problem keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article pigidinnsot gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes mathew mathew mantis co uk writes as for rape surely there the burden of guilt is solely on the rapist not so if you are thrown into a cage with a tiger and get mauled do you blame the tiger a human has greater control over his her actions than a predominately instictive tiger a proper analogy would be if you are thrown into a cage with a person and get mauled do you blame that person yes providing that that person was in a responsible frame of mind eg not clinicaly insane on pcb s etc one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men bobby mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu april the one true muslim left in the world
alt.atheism	re idle questions for fellow atheists in article apr mac cc macalstr edu acooper mac cc macalstr edu writes i wonder how many atheists out there care to speculate on the face of the world if atheists were the majority rather than the minority group of the population probably we would have much the same problems with only a slight shift in emphasis weekends might not be so inviolate more common to work days a week in a business and instead of american atheists we would have similar religious organizations a persons religious belief seems more as a crutch and justification for actions than a guide to determine actions of course people would have to come up with more fascinating rationalizations for their actions but that could be fun to watch it seems to me that for most people religion in america doesn t matter that much you have extreemists on both ends but a large majority don t make too much of an issue about it as long as you don t now admittedly i have never had to suffer the bible belt but i am just north of it and see the fringes and the reasonable people in most things tend to be reasonable in religion as well also how many atheists out there would actually take the stance and accor a higher value to their way of thinking over the theistic way of thinking the typical selfish argument would be that both lines of thinking evolved from the same inherent motivation so one is not intrinsically different from the other qualitatively but then again a measuring stick must be drawn somewhere and if we cannot assign value to a system of beliefs at its core than the only other alternative is to apply it to its periphery ie how it expresses its own selfishness i don t bother according a higher value to my thinking or just about anybodys thinking i don t want to fall in that trap because if you do start that then you are then to decide which is better says whom why is there a best and also what to do about those who have inferior modes of thinking idic infinite diversity in infinite combinations i ll argue it over a soda but not over much more just my what inflation has done m
alt.atheism	re the problem of satan used to be islamic authority over women in article apr news unomaha edu trajan cwis unomaha edu stephen mcintyre writes of course bobby then states that satan has no free will that he does as god wants him to this brings up a host of paradoxes is god therefore evil do i have free will or is god directing me also if god is evil which part of his infinite self is good and which is evil etc i would like for once a solid answer not a run about i hope i gave you a fairly solid answer to this one i simply don t agree with the embodied version of a satan who is a separate creation or a force i wrote the belief to which i ascribe is that evil is not a creation rather it is the absence of good this fits with all the logic about things having dual use e g a knife can be used to sculpt and it can be used to kill like entropy evil is seen in this view as neither force nor entity satan is therefore metaphorical in fact there are several verses of the holy qur an which appear to support this view and several traditions as well for example there is a tradition that food should never be left open on a shelf or table overnight lest satan enter it it appears that this is a reference to as yet undiscovered germs thus the evil effect of spoiled food is described as satan but there are many examples of satan personified which am i to believe and there are quite physical descriptions of heaven and hell in the holy qur an the bible etc there have been times in the spiritual and intellectual evolution of the modern human when these physical descriptions of heaven hell and satan were taken quite literally and that worked for the time as i mentioned in the tradition cited above for example it was sufficient in the absence of a theory about germs and disease spread by worms to simply describe the evil which was passed to a consumer of spoiled food as satanic which begs the question if satan in this case is metaphorical how can you be certain allah is not the same way the bottom line here however is that describing a spiritual plane in human language is something like describing color to a person who has been blind from birth you may want to read the book flatland if you haven t already or the dragon s egg the first is intended as a light hearted description of a mathematical con cept some deleted for space saving when language fails because it cannot be used to adequately describe another dimension which cannot be experienced by the speakers then such conventions as metaphor allegory and the like come to be necessary the unseen is described in terms which have reference and meaning for the reader listener but like all models a compro mise must be made when speaking metaphorically clarity and directness of meaning equivalence of perception and the like are all crippled but what else can you do this is why i asked the above how would you then know god exists as a spirit or being rather than just being metaphorical i mean it s okay to say well satan is just metaphorical but then you have to justify this belief and justify that god is not some metaphor for something else i say this because there are many many instances of satan described as a being such as the tormentor in the old testament book of job or the temptor in the new testament gospels in the same way god too is described as a being or spirit how am i to know one is metaphorical and not the other further belief in god isn t a bar to evil let s consider the case of satanists even if satan were metaphorical the satanist would have to believe in god to justify this belief again we have a case where someone does believe in god but by religious standards they are evil if bobby does see this let him address this question also deleted some more on metaphor obviously more philosophizing on this issue is possible but i m not sure that the readers of this newsgroup would want to delve into religious interpretation further however if anyone wishes to discuss this i m certainly willing either off line e mail or on line posting stephen atheist libertarian pro individuality pro responsibility jr and all that jazz
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts in article pmjo inn l lynx unm edu bevans carina unm edu mathemagician writes just what do gay people do that straight people don t absolutely nothing i m a very straight as an arrow year old male that is involved in the bsa i don t care what gay people do among each other as long as they don t make passes at me or anything at my summer camp where i work my boss is gay not in a pansy way of gay i know a few but just one of the guys he doesn t push anything on me and we give him the same respect back due to his position if anything the bsa has taught me i don t know tolerance or something before i met this guy i thought all gays were faries so the bsa has taught me to be an antibigot basically it comes down to this what you do among yourself is your own business no one else has the right to tell you otherwise unless it violates someone else s civil rights
alt.atheism	re gospel dating date mon apr gmt from stilgar west next cville wam umd edu in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article apr wam umd edu west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes the illiad is the undisputed word of god tm prove me wrong i dispute it ergo by counter example you are proven wrong i dispute your counter example ergo by counter counter example you are wrong and i am right so nanny nanny boo boo tbbbbbbbtttttthhhhh p this looks like a serious case of temporary islam
alt.atheism	a word of advice in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes i ve said enough times that there is no alternative that should think you might have caught on by now and there is no alternative but the point is rationality isn t an alternative either the problems of metaphysical and religious knowledge are unsolvable or i should say humans cannot solve them how does that saying go those who say it can t be done shouldn t interrupt those who are doing it jim have you washed your brain today
alt.atheism	re concerning god s morality long jbrown batman bmd trw com writes sorry but there are no supernatural forces necessary to create a pathogen you are saying since diseases are bad the bad entity must have created it so what would you say about acid rain meteors falling from the sky volcanoes earthquakes and other quote unquote acts of god i would say that they are not acts of god but natural occurrences it amazes me that you have the audacity to say that human creation was not the result of the natural process of evolution but rather an act of god and then in the same post say that these other processes volcanos et al are natural occurrences who gave you the right to choose what things are natural processes and what are direct acts of god how do you know that god doesn t cause each and every natural disaster with a specific purpose in mind it would certainly go along with the sadistic nature i ve seen in the bible even if satan had nothing to do with the original inception of disease evolution by random chance would have produced them since humanity forsook god s protection if we choose to live apart from god s law humanity collectively then it should come as no surprise that there are adverse consequences to our collective action one of these is that we are left to deal with disease and disorders which inevitably result in an entropic universe may i ask where is this collective bullcrap coming from by collective i was referring to the idea that god works with humanity on two levels individually and collectively if mankind as a whole decides to undertake a certain action the majority of mankind then god will allow the consequences of that action to affect mankind as a whole adam eve two people even tho they had the honor or so you christians claim of being the first two definitely do not represent a majority in the billions and trillions probably more of people that have come after them perhaps they were the majority then but i and you weren t around to vote and perhaps we might have voted differently about what to do with that tree but your god never asked us he just assumes that if you have two bad people then they all must be bad hmm sounds like the same kind of false generalization that i see many of the theists posting here resorting to so that s where they get it shoulda known jim b nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes that s your mistake it would be better for the children if the mother raised the child one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men compare that with how homos are raised do a study and you will get my point but in no way do you have a claim that it would be better if the men stayed home and raised the child that is something false made up by feminists that seek a status above men you do not recognize the fact that men and women have natural differences not just physically but mentally also your logic i didn t say americans were the cause of worlds problems i said atheists becuase they have no code of ethics to follow which means that atheists can do whatever they want which they feel is right something totally based on their feelings and those feelings cloud their rational thinking yeah i didn t say that all atheists are bad but that they could be bad or good with nothing to define bad or good awright bobby s back in all of his shit for brains glory just when i thought he d turned the corner of progress his thorazine prescription runs out i d put him in my kill file but man this is good stuff i wish i had his staying power fortunately i learned not to take him too seriously long long long ago bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes peace bobby get this the hell out of your sig until you learn what it stands for and really mean it bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	omnipotence was re speculations in article p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes date fri apr from nanci ann miller nm w andrew cmu edu can god uncreate itself no for if he did he would violate his own nature which he cannot do it is god s nature to exist he is after all the i am which is a statement of his inherent existence he is existence itself existence cannot not exist then as mentioned above he must not be very omnipotent what do you mean by omnipotent here do you mean by omnipotent that god should be able to do anything everything this creates a self contradictory definition of omnipotence which is effectively useless to be descriptive omnipotence must mean being all powerful and not being able to do anything everything let me illustrate by analogy suppose the united states were the only nuclear power on earth suppose further that the us military could not effectively be countered by any nation or group of nations the us has the power to go into any country at any time for any reason to straighten things out as the leaders of the us see fit the us would be militarily omnipotent but suppose further that the us holds to a doctrine philosophy of not interfering in the internal affairs of any nation such as the current civil war in the former yugoslavian states technically in this scenario the us would have the power to unilaterally go into yugoslavia and straighten out the mess but effectively the us could not intervene without violating its own policy of non interference if the policy of non interference were held to strongly enough then there would never be a question that it would ever be violated effectively the us would be limited in what it could actually do although it had the power to do whatever it wanted the us would simply never want to interfere for such an idea would be beyond the consideration of its leaders given such an inviolate non interference policy god is effectively limited in the same sense he is all powerful but he cannot use his power in a way that would violate the essence of what he himself is i hope this helps to clear up some of the misunderstanding concerning omnipotence regards jim b
alt.atheism	re islamic marriage in article apr cadence com mas cadence com masud khan writes in article c qav wg austin ibm com karner austin ibm com f karner writes okay so you want me to name names there are obviously no official records of these pseudo marriages because they are performed for convenience what happens typically is that the woman is willing to move in with her lover without any scruples or legal contracts to speak of the man is merely utilizing a loophole by entering into a temporary religious marriage contract in order to have sex nobody complains nobody cares nobody needs to know perhaps you should alert your imam it could be that this practice is far more widespread than you may think or maybe it takes muslim men to witness the penetration to decide if the practice exists again you astound me with the level of ignorance you display muslims are not allowed to enter temporary marriages got that there is no evidence for it it an outlawed practise so get your facts straight buddy give me references for it or just tell everyone you were lying it is not a widespread as you may think fantasise in fact contrary to your fantasies it is not practised at all amongst muslims first of all i m not your buddy second read what i wrote i m not talking about what muslims are allowed to do merely what some practice they consider themselves as muslim as you so don t retort with the old and tired they must not be true muslims bullshit if i gave you the names what will you do with this information is a fatwa going to be leashed out against the perpetrators do you honestly think that someone who did it would voluntarily come forward and confess with the kind of extremism shown by your co religionaries fat chance at any rate there can be no conclusive proof by the very nature of the act perhaps people that indulge in this practice agree with you in theory but hope that allah will forgive them in the end i think it s rather arrogant of you to pretend to speak for all muslims in this regard also kind of silly are you insinuating that because the koranic law forbids it there are no criminals in muslim countries this is as far as i care to go on this subject the weakness of your arguments are for all netters to see over and out disclaimer the opinions expressed in this posting are mine solely and do not represent my employer in any way f a karner aix technical support karner austin vnet ibm com
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article pi h innq gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes reference line trimmed livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes there is a good deal more confusion here you started off with the assertion that there was some objective morality and as you admit here you finished up with a recursive definition murder is objectively immoral but eactly what is murder and what is not itself requires an appeal to morality yes now you have switch targets a little but only a little now you are asking what is the goal what do you mean by goal are you suggesting that there is some objective goal out there somewhere and we form our morals to achieve it well for example the goal of natural morality is the survival and propogation of the species i got just this far what do you mean by goal i hope you don t mean to imply that evolution has a conscious goal jon
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article pic linnrau gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes my personal objection is that i find capital punishment to be cruel and unusual punishment under all circumstances it can be painless so it isn t cruel and it has occurred frequently since the dawn of time so it is hardly unusual koff you mean that as long as i put you to sleep first i can kill you without being cruel this changes everything jon
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article pieg inns gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes now along comes mr keith schneider and says here is an objective moral system and then i start to ask him about the definitions that this objective system depends on and predictably the whole thing falls apart it only falls apart if you attempt to apply it this doesn t mean that an objective system can t exist it just means that one cannot be implemented it s not the fact that it can t exist that bothers me it s the fact that you don t seem to be able to define it if i wanted to hear about indefinable things that might in principle exist as long as you don t think about them too carefully i could ask a religious person now couldn t i jon
alt.atheism	re pompous ass in article pi btinnqa gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes then why do people keep asking the same questions over and over because you rarely ever answer them nope i ve answered each question posed and most were answered multiple times he fifty dollars if i can t answer your question she what is the big bang theory he the big bang theory is a recipe for cookies she fifty dollars please he hey i didn t say the answers would make sense jon
alt.atheism	re pompous ass in article pi jkinnqe gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes how long does it the motto have to stay around before it becomes the default where s the cutoff point i don t know where the exact cutoff is but it is at least after a few years and surely after years why does the notion of default not take into account changes in population makeup specifically which changes are you talking about are you arguing that the motto is interpreted as offensive by a larger portion of the population now than years ago no do i have to i m just commenting that it makes very little sense to consider everything we inherit to be the default seen any steam trains recently jon
alt.atheism	re concerning god s morality long in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com responds to a lot of grief given to him in article apr leland stanford edu galahad leland stanford edu scott compton a k a the sagemaster but then i ask so where is this relevant to my discussion in answering john s question of why why are there genetic diseases and why are there so many bacterial and viral diseases which require babies to develop antibodies is it god s fault the original question i say no it is not most of scotty s followup was irrelevant to the original question but this is not unusual as threads often quickly evolve away from the original topic what i could not understand is why jim spent so much time responding to what he regarded as irrelevancies may i ask where is this collective bullcrap coming from by collective i was referring to the idea that god works with humanity on two levels individually and collectively if mankind as a whole decides to undertake a certain action the majority of mankind well i guess hypothetical adam was the majority of mankind seeing how he was the only man at the time then god will allow the consequences of that action to affect mankind as a whole if you didn t understand that then i apologize for not using one and two syllable words in my discussion i understand what you mean by collective but i think it is an insane perversion of justice what sort of judge would punish the descendants for a crime committed by their ancestor if you want to be sure that i read your post and to provide a response send a copy to jim brown oz bmd trw com i can t read a a every day and some posts slip by thanks well i must admit that you probably read a a more often than i read the bible these days but you missed a couple of good followups to your post i m sending you a personal copy of my followup which i hope you will respond to publically in a a john the sageless
alt.atheism	re jews can t hide from keith cco in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes in article pj b aaa fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes er jon what ken said was there have previously been people like you in your country unfortunately most jews did not survive that sure sounds to me like ken is accusing the guy of being a nazi my previous posting deleted yes yes this is a perfectly fine rant and i agree with it completely but what does it have to do with anything the issue at hand here is whether or not ken accused the fellow from germany of being a nazi i grant that he did not explicity make this accusation but he came pretty damn close he is certainly accusing the guy of sympathizing with those who would like to exterminate the jews and that s good enough for me the poster casually trashed two thousand years of jewish history and ken replied that there had previously been people like him in germany that s right there have been there have also been people who were formally nazis but the nazi party would have gone nowhere without the active and tacit support of the ordinary man in the street who behaved as though casual anti semitism was perfectly acceptable now what exactly don t you understand about what i wrote and why don t you see what it has to do with the matter at hand jon
alt.atheism	re jews can t hide from keith cco in article apr mac cc macalstr edu acooper mac cc macalstr edu writes in article pint l fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes well germany was hardly the only country to discriminate against the jews although it has the worst reputation because it did the best job of expressing a general european dislike of them this should not turn into a debate on antisemitism but you should also point out that luther s antisemitism was based on religious grounds while hitler s was on racial grounds and wagnmer s on aesthetic grounds just blanketing the whole group is poor analysis even if they all are bigots i find these to be intriguing remarks could you give us a bit more explanation here for example which religion is anti semitic and which aesthetic jon
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in p ivt cfj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes should we british go around blowing up skyscrapers next i don t know if you are doing so but it seems you are implying that the person accused of blowing up the wtc in ny actually did it and that islamic teachings have something to do with blowing up the wtc i was replying to a person who attempted to justify the fatwa against rushdie on the grounds that his work was intentionally insulting i think that to take a single sentence from a fairly long posting and to say i don t know if you are doing so but it seems you are implying is at the very best quite disingenuous and perhaps even dishonest if anyone care to dig back and read the full posting they will see nothing of the kind i trust you don t deny that islamic teaching has something to do with the fatwa against rushdie jon
alt.atheism	re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes i don t understand the point of this petty sarcasm it is a basic principle of islam that if one is born muslim or one says i testify that there is no god but god and mohammad is a prophet of god that so long as one does not explicitly reject islam by word then one must be considered muslim by all muslims so the phenomenon you re attempting to make into a general rule or psychology is a direct odds with basic islamic principles if you want to attack islam you could do better than than to argue against something that islam explicitly contradicts then mr mozumder is incorrect when he says that when committing bad acts people temporarily become atheists jon
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes if saddam believed in god he would pray five times a day communism on the other hand actually committed genocide in the name of atheism as lenin and stalin have said themselves these two were die hard atheist look a pun and believed in atheism as an integral part of communism no bobby stalin killed millions in the name of socialism atheism was a characteristic of the lenin stalin version of socialism nothing more another characteristic of lenin stalin socialism was the centralization of food distribution would you therefore say that stalin and lenin killed millions in the name of rationing bread of course not more horrible deaths resulted from atheism than anything else in earlier posts you stated that true muslim believers were incapable of evil i suppose if you believe that you could reason that no one has ever been killed in the name of religion what a perfect world you live in bobby one of the reasons that you are atheist is that you limit god by giving god a form god does not have a face bobby is referring to a rather obscure law in the good atheist s handbook law xxvi a give that which you do not believe in a face you must excuse us bobby when we argue against theism we usually argue against the christian idea of god in the realm of christianity man was created in god s image kevin marshall sophomore computer science virginia tech blacksburg va usa marshall csugrad cs vt edu
alt.atheism	re the list of biblical contradictions joslin pogo isp pitt edu david joslin writes someone writes i found a list of biblical contradictions and cleaned it up a bit but now i d like some help with it i m curious to know what purpose people think these lists serve it s about time why do atheists spend so much time paying attention to the bible anyway face it there are better things to do with your life i used to chuckle and snort over the silliness in that book and the absurdity of people believing in it as truth etc why do we spend so little time on the mayan religion or the native americans heck the native americans have signifigantly more interesting myths also what about the egyptians i think we pay so much attention to christianity because we accept it as a religion and not a mythology which i find more accurate i try to be tolerant it gets very hard when someone places a book under my nose and tells me it s special it s not carolyn
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses on apr mst jbrown batman bmd trw com said god is eternal a b jesus is god c a therefore jesus is eternal c b this works both logically and mathematically god is of the set of things which are eternal jesus is a subset of god therefore jesus belongs to the set of things which are eternal everything isn t always so logical mercedes is a car that girl is mercedes therefore that girl is a car heikki
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article k rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mantis co uk mathew writes in article apr blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes the automobile system kills non driving passengers not to mention pedestrians you need not drive or even use a car to be killed by one indeed and it kills far more than a system of public transport would i am therefore entirely in favour of banning private cars and replacing them with trains buses taxis bicycles and so on seconded i cycle to work each day and if we could just get those damned cars and their cretinous drivers off the road it would be a lot more fun jon
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article h rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mantis co uk mathew writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes and we meaning people who drive accept the risks of doing so and contribute tax money to design systems to minimize those risks eh we already have systems to minimize those risks it s just that you car drivers don t want to use them they re called bicycles trains and buses poor matthew a million posters to call you car drivers and he chooses me a non car owner jon
alt.atheism	re omnipotence was re speculations in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes date fri apr from nanci ann miller nm w andrew cmu edu can god uncreate itself no for if he did he would violate his own nature which he cannot do it is god s nature to exist he is after all the i am which is a statement of his inherent existence he is existence itself existence cannot not exist then as mentioned above he must not be very omnipotent what do you mean by omnipotent here do you mean by omnipotent that god should be able to do anything everything this creates a self contradictory definition of omnipotence which is effectively useless to be descriptive omnipotence must mean being all powerful and not being able to do anything everything let me illustrate by analogy suppose the united states were the only nuclear power on earth suppose further that the us military could not effectively be countered by any nation or group of nations the us has the power to go into any country at any time for any reason to straighten things out as the leaders of the us see fit the us would be militarily omnipotent did you check with the afghans before posting this they might disagree jon
alt.atheism	re a little too satanic mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes nanci ann miller writes my favorite reply to the you are being too literal minded complaint is that if the bible is really inspired by god and if it is really that important to him then he would make damn certain all the translators and scribes and people interpreting and copying it were getting it right literally if not then why should i put any merit at all in something that has been corrupted over and over and over by man even if it was originally inspired by god the corrupted over and over theory is pretty weak comparison of the current hebrew text with old versions and translations shows that the text has in fact changed very little over a space of some two millennia this shouldn t be all that suprising people who believe in a text in this manner are likely to makes some pains to make good copies do you honestly hold to that tripe charley for a start there are enough current versions of the bible to make comparisons to show that what you write above is utter garbage witness jw mormon catholic anglican and greek orthodox bibles but to really convince you i d have to take you to a good old library in our local library we had a king james which i compared to a brand new hot of god s tongue good news bible genesis was almost unrecognisable many of the discrepencies between the four gospels had been edited from the good news bible in fact the god of good news was a much more congenial fellow i must say if you like i ll get the king james out again and actually give you some quotes at least the headings haven t changed much jeff
alt.atheism	re ancient islamic rituals cfaehl vesta unm edu chris faehl writes why is it more reasonable than the trend towards obesity and the trend towards depression you can t just pick your two favorite trends notice a correlation in them and make a sweeping statement of generality i mean you can and people have but that does not mean that it is a valid or reasonable thesis at best it s a gross oversimplification of the push pull factors people experience i agree i reckon it s television and the increase in fundamentalism you think its the increase in pre marital sex others thinks its because psychologists have taken over the criminal justice system and let violent criminals con them into letting them out into the streets others think it s the increase in designer drugs others think it s a communist plot basically the social interactions of all the changing factors in our society are far too complicated for us to control we just have to hold on to the panic handles and hope that we are heading for a soft landing but one things for sure depression and the destruction of the nuclear family is not due solely to sex out of marriage jeff fred rice a muslim giving his point of view darice yoyo cc monash edu au cfaehl vesta unm edu
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution in article apr njitgw njit edu dmu hertz njit edu david utidjian eng sci writes in article mar juliet caltech edu lmh juliet caltech edu henling lawrence m writes for a complete description of what is and is not atheism or agnosticism see the faq for alt atheism in alt answers i think utidjian remarque berkeley edu i apologize for posting this i thought it was only going to talk origins i also took my definitions from a websters nonetheless the apparent past arguments over these words imply that like bimonthly and biweekly they have no commonly accepted definitions and should be used with care larry henling lmh shakes caltech edu
alt.atheism	re jews can t hide from keith cco in article pj b aaa fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes in article pint l fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes deletions er jon what ken said was there have previously been people like you in your country unfortunately most jews did not survive that sure sounds to me like ken is accusing the guy of being a nazi hitler and the nazis didn t spring fully formed from the forehead of athena they didn t invent anti semitism they built on a foundation of anti semitism that was already present in germany this foundation of anti semitism was laid down not by the nazis but by the people i listed and also by hundreds of years of unthinking knee jerk bigotry on the part of perfectly ordinary people and of course their pastors and priests what we have to worry about today is not whether some hollywood hitler in a black uniform is going to come striding onto the german stage in one unprepared step but whether those same bedrock foundations of anti semitism are being laid down little by little in germany as we speak and if so they will be laid down not by hitlers and himmlers who will come later but by people like the poster in question the people who think that casual anti semitism is acceptable or even fun deletions i did now may i suggest with the greatest possible respect that you go read some history jon so you consider the german poster s remark anti semitic perhaps you imply that anyone in germany who doesn t agree with israely policy in a nazi pray tell how does it even qualify as casual anti semitism if the term doesn t apply why then bring it up your own bigotry is shining through disclaimer the opinions expressed in this posting are mine solely and do not represent my employer in any way f a karner aix technical support karner austin vnet ibm com
alt.atheism	re omnipotence was re speculations in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes god is effectively limited in the same sense he is all powerful but he cannot use his power in a way that would violate the essence of what he himself is cannot try will not one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men bobby mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu april the one true muslim left in the world
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses in article suopanki apr stekt oulu fi suopanki stekt oulu fi heikki t suopanki writes god is eternal a b jesus is god c a therefore jesus is eternal c b this works both logically and mathematically god is of the set of things which are eternal jesus is a subset of god therefore jesus belongs to the set of things which are eternal everything isn t always so logical mercedes is a car that girl is mercedes therefore that girl is a car this is not strickly correct only by incorrect application of the rules of language does it seem to work the mercedes in the first premis and the one in the second are not the same mercedes in your case a b c d a and d are not equal one is a name of a person the other the name of a object you can not simply extract a word without taking the context into account of course your case doesn t imply that a d in his case a does equal d try again one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men bobby mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu april the one true muslim left in the world
alt.atheism	islam vs the jehovah s witnesses in article apr princeton edu qpliu princeton edu writes in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes but god created lucifer with a perfect nature and gave him along with the other angels free moral will now god could have prevented lucifer s fall by taking away his ability to choose between moral alternatives worship god or worship himself so lucifer s moral choices are determined by his will what determines what his will is qpliu princeton edu standard opinion opinions are delta correlated bobby a few posts ago you said that lucifer had no free will from the above it seems the jw believes the contrary are you talking about the same lucifer if so can you suggest an experiment to determine which of you is wrong or do you claim that you are both right norman
alt.atheism	re had to share this in article apr acme gen nz kilroy acme gen nz earthbound misfit i writes bena dec cs monash edu au ben aveling writes warning if you are anything like a devout christian this post is really going to offend and or upset you numerous ctrl ls deleted hehehe i assume everyone here is familiar with the christian fish symbol the one on the back of all those volvos the one that looks something like or perhaps more like well i found out this morning where it comes from it s been stolen from the pagans like so much else last last chance to be blisfully ignorant hmm how can i put it well it comes from this sigh i hate drawing with ascii chars still i think you can work it out from there if you haven t go read skinny legs and all by tom robbins if he s even accurate then most of the modern religions have been appropriated it s also a great book followups to alt atheism whose readers are probably slightly more authorative on this k craig harding kilroy acme gen nz acme bbs jub er lbh pnyyvat n obmb craig i thought it was derived from a greek acronym my greek isn t up to much but it goes something like this jesus christ god iesus christos theos ichthos which is the greek for fish as in eg ichthysaurus apologies for my dreadful greek perhaps someone will correct it by the way what does your sig mean norman
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes one of the reasons that you are atheist is that you limit god by giving god a form god does not have a face wait a minute i thought you said that allah i presume allah god was unknowable and yet here you are claiming to know a very concrete fact about him you say that god does not have a face doesn t the bible say that god has hindparts how do you suggest i decide which if any of you is right or are you both right god has hindparts but no face or does your use of quotation marks god does not have a face allow you to interpret this to mean whatever you like peace bobby mozumder norman
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article ba da i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes but could you give a definition of free will especially in the presence of an omniscient being will is self determination in other words god created conscious beings who have the ability to choose between moral choices independently of god all will therefore is free will so these hypothetical conscious beings can ignore any influences of their circumstances their genetics their environment their experiences which are not all self determined of course the idea of hell makes the idea of free will dubious on the other hand the idea of hell is not a very powerful idea a parable for you there was once our main character who blah blah blah one day a thug pointed a mean looking gun at omc and said do what i say or i m blasting you to hell omc thought if i believe this thug and follow the instructions that will be given i ll avoid getting blasted to hell on the other hand if i believe this thug and do not follow the instructions that will be given i ll get blasted to hell hmm the more attractive choice is obvious i ll follow the instructions now omc found the choice obvious because everything omc had learned about getting blasted to hell made it appear very undesirable but then omc noticed that the thug s gun wasn t a real gun the thug s threats were make believe so omc ignored the thug and resumed blah blah blah qpliu princeton edu standard opinion opinions are delta correlated
alt.atheism	re gospel dating in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article apr wam umd edu west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article apr wam umd edu west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes the illiad is the undisputed word of god tm prove me wrong i dispute it ergo by counter example you are proven wrong i dispute your counter example ergo by counter counter example you are wrong and i am right so nanny nanny boo boo tbbbbbbbtttttthhhhh no the premis stated that it was undisputed fine the illiad is the word of god tm disputed or not it is dispute that it won t matter prove me wrong brian west this is not a sig file to the earth we have been this is not a sig file here but for the blink of an ok so it s a sig file eye if we were gone tomorrow posted by west wam umd edu we would not be missed who doesn t care who knows it jurassic park diclaimer i said this i meant this nobody made me do it
alt.atheism	re gospel dating in article apr wam umd edu west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes fine the illiad is the word of god tm disputed or not it is dispute that it won t matter prove me wrong the illiad contains more than one word ergo it can not be the word of god but if you will humbly agree that it is the words of god i will conceed d one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men bobby mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu april the one true muslim left in the world
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution in article pik i l fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article c u l bv darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes why do you spend so much time posting here if your atheism is so incidental if the question of god is trivial fess up it matters to you a great deal ask yourself two questions how important is mithras in your life today how important would mithras become if there was a well funded group of fanatics trying to get the schools system to teach your children that mithras was the one true god jon right on jon who cares who or whose as long as it works for the individual but don t try to impose those beliefs on us or our children i would add the well funded group tries also to purge science to deny children access to great wonders and skills and how about the kids born to creationists what a burden with which to begin adult life it must be a cruel awakening for those who finally see the light provided it is possible to escape from the depths of this type of ignorance
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses jbrown batman bmd trw com writes my syllogism is of the form a is b c is a therefore c is b this is a logically valid construction your syllogism however is of the form a is b c is b therefore c is a therefore yours is a logically invalid construction and your comments don t apply i appeal to mathew mantis here who wrote the excellent post now part of the faq on logical argument jim b i am not mathew mantis but any successful first year logic student will see that you are logically correct the other poster is logically incorrect i know is nothing more than i believe with pretentions
alt.atheism	re concerning god s morality was americans and evolution in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes why do babies get diseases etc what god did create was life according to a protein code which is mutable and can evolve without delving into a deep discussion of creationism vs evolutionism here s the main problem the scenario you outline is reasonably consistent but all the evidence that i am familiar with not only does not support it but indicates something far different the earth by latest estimates is about billion years old and has had life for about billion of those years humans have only been around for at most about years but the fossil evidence inidcates that life has been changing and evolving and in fact disease ridden long before there were people yes there are fossils that show signs of disease mostly bone disorders of course but there are some heck not just fossil evidence but what we ve been able to glean from genetic study shows that disease has been around for a long long time if human sin was what brought about disease at least indirectly though necessarily then how could it exist before humans god created the original genetic code perfect and without flaw and without getting sidetracked into the theological ramifications of the original sin the main effect of the so called original sin for this discussion was to remove humanity from god s protection since by their choice a e cut themselves off from intimate fellowship with god in addition their sin caused them to come under the dominion of satan who then assumed dominion over the earth deletions since humanity was no longer under god s protection but under satan s dominion it was no great feat for satan to genetically engineer diseases both bacterial viral and genetic although the forces of natural selection tend to improve the survivability of species the degeneration of the genetic code tends to more than offset this uh i know of many evolutionary biologists who know more about biology than you claim to who will strongly disagree with this there is no evidence that the human genetic code or any other started off in perfect condition it seems to adapt to its envionment in a collective sense i m really curious as to what you mean by the degeneration of the genetic code human dna being more complex tends to accumulate errors adversely affecting our well being and ability to fight off disease while the simpler dna of bacteria and viruses tend to become more efficient in causing infection and disease it is a bad combination umm nah we seem to do a pretty good job of adapting to viruses and bacteria and they to us only a very small percentage of microlife is harmful to humans and that small percentage seems to be reasonalby constant in size but the ranks keep changing for example bubonic plague used to be a really nasty disease i m sure you ll agree but it still pops up from time to time even today and doesn t do as much damage part of that is because of better sanitation but even when people get the disease the symptoms tend to be less severe than in the past this seems to be partly because people who were very susceptible died off long ago and because the really nasty variants overgrazed forgive the poor terminology i m an engineer not a doctor and died off for lack of nearby hosts i could be wrong on this but from what i gather acne is only a few hundred years old and used to be nastier though no killer it seems to be getting less nasty w age hence we have newborns that suffer from genetic viral and bacterial diseases disorders now wait a minute i have a question humans were created perfect right and you admit that we have an inbuilt abiliy to fight off disease it seems unlikely that satan who s making the diseases would also gift humans with the means to fight them off simpler to make the diseases less lethal if he wants survivors as far as i can see our immune systems imperfect though they may presently be must have been built into us by god i want to be clear on this are you saying that god was planning ahead for the time when satan would be in charge by building an immune system that was not at the time of design necessary that is god made our immune systems ahead of time knowing that adam and eve would sin and their descendents would need to fight off diseases this may be more of a mystical supernatural explanation than you are prepared to accept but god is not responsible for disease even if satan had nothing to do with the original inception of disease evolution by random chance would have produced them since humanity forsook god s protection here s another puzzle what exactly do you mean by perfect in the phrase created perfect and without flaw to my mind a perfect system would be incapable of degrading over time a perfect system that will without constant intervention become imperfect is not a perfect system at least imho or is it that god did something like writing a masterpiece novel on a bunch of gum wrappers held together with elmer s glue that is the original genetic instructions were perfect but were written in inferior materials that had to be carefully tended or would fall apart if so why could god not have used better materials was god incapable of creating a system that could maintain itself of did it just choose not to deletions in summary newborns are innocent but god does not cause their suffering my main point as i said was that there really isn t any evidence for the explanation you give at least that i m aware of but i couldn t help making a few nitpicks here and there sincerely ray ingles the above opinions are probably not those of the university of ingles engin umich edu michigan yet
alt.atheism	re concerning god s morality long in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article apr leland stanford edu galahad leland stanford edu scott compton writes deletions now back to your post you have done a fine job at using your seventh grade life science course to explain why bad diseases are caused by satan and good things are a result of god but i want to let you in on a little secret we can create an amino acid sequence in lab and guess what the sequence curls into a helix wow that s right it can happen without a supernatural force wow all it takes is a few advanced science degrees and millions of dollars of state of the art equipment and i thought it took intelligence to create the building blocks of life foolish me people with advanced science degrees use state of the art equipment and spend millions of dollars to simulate tornadoes but tornadoes do not require intelligence to exist not only that the equipment needed is not really state of the art to study the products yes but not to generate them if you want to be sure that i read your post and to provide a response send a copy to jim brown oz bmd trw com i can t read a a every day and some posts slip by thanks oh i will sincerely ray ingles the above opinions are probably not those of the university of ingles engin umich edu michigan yet
alt.atheism	re an anecdote about islam date apr gmt from jon livesey livesey solntze wpd sgi com in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes i don t understand the point of this petty sarcasm it is a basic principle of islam that if one is born muslim or one says i testify that there is no god but god and mohammad is a prophet of god that so long as one does not explicitly reject islam by word then one must be considered muslim by all muslims so the phenomenon you re attempting to make into a general rule or psychology is a direct odds with basic islamic principles if you want to attack islam you could do better than than to argue against something that islam explicitly contradicts then mr mozumder is incorrect when he says that when committing bad acts people temporarily become atheists jon of course b m is not incorrect he is defending islam when defending islam against infidels you can say anything and no one will dare criticize you but when an atheist uses the same argument he is using petty sarcasm so b m can have his temporary atheists whenever he needs them and all the temporary atheists can later say that they were always good muslims because they never explicitly rejected islam temporary atheism temporary islam temporary marriage none of it sticks a teflon religion how convenient and so easy to clean up after but then what would you expect from a bunch of people who can t even agree on the phases of the moon
alt.atheism	re concerning god s morality long this kind of argument cries for a comment jbrown batman bmd trw com wrote in article apr leland stanford edu galahad leland stanford edu scott compton writes jim you originally wrote god did not create disease nor is he responsible for the maladies of newborns what god did create was life according to a protein code which is mutable and can evolve without delving into a deep discussion of creationism vs evolutionism god created the original genetic code perfect and without flaw do you have any evidence for this if the code was once perfect and has degraded ever since we should have some evidence in favour of this statement shouldn t we perhaps the biggest imperfection of the code is that it is full of non coding regions introns which are so called because they intervene with the coding regions exons an impressive amount of evidence suggests that introns are of very ancient origin it is likely that early exons represented early protein domains is the number of introns decreasing or increasing it appears that intron loss can occur and species with common ancestry usually have quite similar exon intron structure in their genes on the other hand the possibility that introns have been inserted later presents several logical difficulties introns are removed by a splicing mechanism this would have to be present but unused if introns are inserted moreover intron insertion would have required precise targeting random insertion would not be tolerated since sequences for intron removal self splicing of mrna are conserved besides transposition of a sequence usually leaves a trace long terminal repeats and target site duplications and these are not found in or near intron sequences i seriously recommend reading textbooks on molecular biology and genetics before posting theological arguments like this try watson s molecular biology of the gene or darnell lodish baltimore s molecular biology of the cell for starters remember the question was posed in a theological context why does god cause disease in newborns and my answer is likewise from a theological perspective my own it is no less valid than a purely scientific perspective just different scientific perspective is supported by the evidence whereas theological perspectives often fail to fulfil this criterion i think you misread my meaning i said god made the genetic code perfect but that doesn t mean it s perfect now it has certainly evolved since for the worse would you please cite a few references that support your assertion your assertion is less valid than the scientific perspective unless you support it by some evidence in fact it has been claimed that parasites and diseases are perhaps more important than we ve thought for instance sex might have evolved as defence against parasites this view is supported by computer simulations of evolution eg tierra perhaps i thought it was higher energy rays like x rays gamma rays and cosmic rays that caused most of the damage in fact it is thermal energy that does most of the damage although it is usually mild and easily fixed by enzymatic action actually neither of us knows what the atmosphere was like at the time when god created life according to my recollection most biologists do not claim that life began billion years ago after all that would only be a half billion years or so after the earth was created it would still be too primitive to support life i seem to remember a figure more like to billion years ago for the origination of life on earth anyone with a better estimate i d replace created with formed since there is no need to invoke any creator if the earth can be formed without one most recent estimates of the age of the earth range between billion years and earliest signs of life not true fossils but organic stromatolite like layers date back to billion years this would leave more than billion years for the first cells to evolve i m sorry i can t give any references this is based on the course on evolutionary biochemistry i attended here dominion it was no great feat for satan to genetically engineer diseases both bacterial viral and genetic although the forces of natural selection tend to improve the survivability of species the degeneration of the genetic code tends to more than offset this again do you want this be true or do you have any evidence for this supposed degeneration i can understand scott s reaction excuse me but this is so far fetched that i know you must be jesting do you know what pathogens are do you know what point mutations are do you know that everything can come about spontaneously in response to your last statement no and neither do you you may very well believe that and accept it as fact but you cannot know that i hope you don t forget this we have evidence that suggests everything can come about spontaneously do you have evidence against this conclusion in science one does not have to believe in anything it is a healthy sign to doubt and disbelieve but the right path to walk is to take a look at the evidence if you do so and not to present one s own conclusions prior to this theology does not use this method therefore i seriously doubt it could ever come to right conclusions human dna being more complex tends to accumulate errors adversely affecting our well being and ability to fight off disease while the simpler dna of bacteria and viruses tend to become more efficient in causing infection and disease it is a bad combination hence we have newborns that suffer from genetic viral and bacterial diseases disorders you are supposing a purpose not a valid move bacteria and viruses do not exist to cause disease they are just another manifests of a general principle of evolution only replication saves replicators from degradiation we are just an efficient method for our dna to survive and replicate the less efficient methods didn t make it to the present and for the last time please present some evidence for your claim that human dna is degrading through evolutionary processes some people have claimed that the opposite is true we have suppressed our selection and thus are bound to degrade i haven t seen much evidence for either claim but then i ask so where is this relevant to my discussion in answering john s question of why why are there genetic diseases and why are there so many bacterial and viral diseases which require babies to develop antibodies is it god s fault the original question i say no it is not of course nothing evil is god s fault but your explanation does not work it fails miserably you may be right but the fact is that you don t know that satan is not responsible and neither do i suppose that a powerful evil being like satan exists would it be inconceivable that he might be responsible for many of the ills that affect mankind i don t think so he could have done a much better job pun intended the problem is it seems no satan is necessary to explain any diseases they are just as inevitable as any product of evolution did i say that where seems to me like another bad inference actually what you ve done is to oversimplify what i said to the point that your summary of my words takes on a new context i never said that people are meant presumably by god to be punished by getting diseases why i did say is that free moral choices have attendent consequences if mankind chooses to reject god as people have done since the beginning then they should not expect god to protect them from adverse events in an entropic universe i am not expecting this if god exists i expect him to leave us alone i would also like to hear why do you believe your choices are indeed free this is an interesting philosophical question and the answer is not as clear cut as it seems to be what consequences would you expect from rejecting allah oh i admit it s not perfect yet but i m working on it a good library or a bookstore is a good starting point what does this have to do with the price of tea in china or the question to which i provided an answer biology and genetics are fine subjects and important scientific endeavors but they explain how god created and set up life processes they don t explain the why behind creation life or its subsequent evolution why is there a why behind and your proposition was something that is not supported by the evidence this is why we recommend these books is there any need to invoke any why behind a prime mover evidence for this if the whole universe can come into existence without any intervention as recent cosmological theories hawking et al suggest why do people still insist on this thanks scotty for your fine and sagely advice but i am not highly motivated to learn all the nitty gritty details of biology and genetics although i m sure i d find it a fascinating subject for i realize that the details do not change the big picture that god created life in the beginning with the ability to change and adapt to its environment i m sorry but they do there is no evidence for your big picture and no need to create anything that is capable of adaptation it can come into existence without a supreme being try reading p w atkins creation revisited freeman petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re islam dress code for women in article ba c i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes do women have souls in islam people have said here that some muslims say that women do not have souls i must admit i have never heard of such a view being held by muslims of any era i have heard of some christians of some eras holding this viewpoint but not muslims are you sure you might not be confusing christian history with islamic history yes it is supposed to have been a predominant view in the turkish caliphate i am not aware of any turkish caliphate viewpoint on this can you reference however i found a quote due to imam ali whom the shias follow men never obey your women in any way whatsoever never let them give their advice on any matter whatsoever even those of everyday life indeed allow them freely to give advice on anything and they will fritter away one s wealth and disobey the wishes of the owner of this wealth we see them without religion when alone they are left to their own devices they are lacking in both pity and virtue when their carnal desires are at stake it is easy to enjoy them but they cause great anxiety the most virtious among them are libertines but the most corrupt are whores only those of them whom age has deprived of any charm are untainted by vice they have three qualities particular to miscreants they complain of being oppressed whereas it is they who oppress they make oaths whereas they are lying they pretend to refuse men s solicitations whereas they desire them most ardently let us beg the help of god to emerge victorious from their evil deeds and preserve us in any case from their good ones quote from mas ud al qanawi ref a bouhdiba sexuality in islam p i wouldn t consider this quote as being exemplary of the islamic tm viewpoint though for all we know the prophet s cousin and the fourth khalif hazret i ali may have said this after a frustrating night with a woman selim guncer selim e guncer jaca negra luna grande csser asu y aceitunas en mi alforja aunque sepa los caminos guncer enuxha eas asu edu yo nunca llegare a cordoba fgl
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes that s your mistake it would be better for the children if the mother raised the child one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men compare that with how homos are raised do a study and you will get my point but in no way do you have a claim that it would be better if the men stayed home and raised the child that is something false made up by feminists that seek a status above men you do not recognize the fact that men and women have natural differences not just physically but mentally also bobby there s a question here that i just have to ask if all of your posts aren t some sort of extended elaborate hoax why are you trying so hard to convince the entire civilised world that you re feeble minded you have a talent for saying the most absurd things here s a little sign for you print it cut it out and put it on top of your computer terminal engage brain prior to operating keyboard having said all that i must admit we all get a laugh from your stuff graham jenkins graham jenkins its csiro au csiro commonwealth scientific industrial canberra australia research organisation
alt.atheism	re jews can t hide from keith cco in article c daq fqs austin ibm com karner austin ibm com f karner writes so you consider the german poster s remark anti semitic when someone says so after years of sightseeing and roaming around its ok to come back kill palastinians and get their land back right yes that s casual antisemitism i can think of plenty of ways to criticize israeli policy without insulting jews or jewish history can t you jon
alt.atheism	re don t more innocents die without the death penalty james f tims p psilink com writes by maintaining classes d and e even in prison it seems as if we place more innocent people at a higher risk of an unjust death than we would if the state executed classes d and e with an occasional error i would rather be at a higher risk of being killed than actually killed by mistake though i do agree with the concept that the type d and e murderers are a massive waste of space and resources i don t agree with the concept killing is wrong if you kill we will punish you our punishment will be to kill you seems to be lacking in consistency i know is nothing more than i believe with pretentions
alt.atheism	re islam dress code for women in article apr ennews eas asu edu guncer enuxha eas asu edu selim guncer writes i wouldn t consider this quote as being exemplary of the islamic tm viewpoint though for all we know the prophet s cousin and the fourth khalif hazret i ali may have said this after a frustrating night with a woman that s very interesting i wonder are women s reactions recorded after a frustrating night with a man is that considered to be important jon
alt.atheism	re there must be a creator maybe in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes deletions argument from incredulity has not been considered a valid form of reasoning since medieval times deletions interesting that you should mention that argument from incredulity has not been considered a valid form of reasoning since medieval times i quite agree why then do some atheists here engage in it more than a few times i have read posts where the atheists posting state that they cannot see how a gracious and loving god can allow such evil and suffering to occur as we see on the earth simply because they cannot envision it it must not be true if this is not an argument from incredulity i don t know what is as you have presented it it is indeed an argument from incredulity however from what i have seen it is not often presented in this manner it is usually presented more in the form and besides i cannot see nor have i ever been offered a convincing explanation moreover it is not unreasonable to ask for an explanation for such phenomena that theism does not provide a convincing explanation is not an argument in theism s favor especially when different theisms offer different explanations and even different adherents of what is purportedly the same theism give different explanations god has far more complex motivations and reasons for action or non action than to simply fix evil whenever and however it occurs or even before it occurs and yet it is this very same argument from incredulity which ranks high among reasons why atheists in general reject god and in particular the christian god not im my experience in my experience the most common reason is the lack of evidence in theism s favor you mileage may vary this seems to be the universal bane of human reasoning and rationality to wit that it is far easier to see the logical fallacy or inept reasoning on the part of one s opponents than it is to see it in oneself oh heck i ll be snide this once it s also fairly easy to attack arguments that are not made i e strawmen as one man of wisdom put it take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the splinter from your neighbor s eye sage advice indeed sincerely raymond ingles ingles engin umich edu an apple every eight hours keeps three doctors away b kliban
alt.atheism	re political atheists keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes mathew mathew mantis co uk writes perhaps we shouldn t imprision people if we could watch them closely instead the cost would probably be similar especially if we just implanted some sort of electronic device why wait until they commit the crime why not implant such devices in potential criminals like communists and atheists sorry i don t follow your reasoning you are proposing to punish people before they commit a crime what justification do you have for this no mathew is proposing a public defence mechanism not treating the electronic device as an impropriety on the wearer what he is saying is that the next step beyond what you propose is the permanent bugging of potential criminals this may not on the surface sound like a bad thing but who defines what a potential criminal is if the government of the day decides that being a member of an opposition party makes you a potential criminal then openly defying the government becomes a lethal practice this is not conducive to a free society mathew is saying that implanting electronic surveillance devices upon people is an impropriety upon that person regardless of what type of crime or what chance of recidivism there is basically you see the criminal justice system as a punishment for the offender and possibly therefore a deterrant to future offenders mathew sees it most probably as a means of rehabilitation for the offender so he was being cynical at you okay jeff
alt.atheism	re a little too satanic in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes nanci ann miller writes the corrupted over and over theory is pretty weak comparison of the current hebrew text with old versions and translations shows that the text has in fact changed very little over a space of some two millennia this shouldn t be all that suprising people who believe in a text in this manner are likely to makes some pains to make good copies tell it to king james mate c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god john burke jdb summa tamu edu
alt.atheism	re islamic marriage date tue apr gmt from f karner karner austin ibm com in article apr cadence com mas cadence com masud khan writes in article c qav wg austin ibm com karner austin ibm com f karner writes okay so you want me to name names there are obviously no official records of these pseudo marriages because they are performed for convenience what happens typically is that the woman is willing to move in with her lover without any scruples or legal contracts to speak of the man is merely utilizing a loophole by entering into a temporary religious marriage contract in order to have sex nobody complains nobody cares nobody needs to know perhaps you should alert your imam it could be that this practice is far more widespread than you may think or maybe it takes muslim men to witness the penetration to decide if the practice exists again you astound me with the level of ignorance you display muslims are not allowed to enter temporary marriages got that there is no evidence for it it an outlawed practise so get your facts straight buddy give me references for it or just tell everyone you were lying it is not a widespread as you may think fantasise in fact contrary to your fantasies it is not practised at all amongst muslims did you miss my post on this topic with the quote from the indonesian handbook and fred rice s comments about temporary marriages if so i will be glad to repost them will you accept that it just may be a practice among some muslims if i do or will you continue to claim that we are all lying and that it is not practised at all amongst muslims i don t think f karner has to tell everyone anything least of all that he is lying since you obviously know nothing about this practice there is very little you can contribute to the discussion except to accuse everyone of lying perhaps it is your ignorance which is showing learn more about islam learn more about muslims open your eyes maybe you will also see some of the things the atheists see
alt.atheism	re don t more innocents die without the death penalty in article chrisb baarnie chrisb tafe sa edu au chris bell writes killing is wrong if you kill we will punish you our punishment will be to kill you seems to be lacking in consistency not any more so than holding people against their will is wrong if you hold people against their will we will punish you our punishment will be to hold you against your will is there any punishment which isn t something which if done by a private person to another private person for no apparent reason would lead to punishment fines i suppose jim lippard lippard ccit arizona edu dept of philosophy lippard arizvms bitnet university of arizona tucson az
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article suopanki apr stekt oulu fi suopanki stekt oulu fi heikki t suopanki writes god is eternal a b jesus is god c a therefore jesus is eternal c b this works both logically and mathematically god is of the set of things which are eternal jesus is a subset of god therefore jesus belongs to the set of things which are eternal the first premise and the conclusion are not properly translated as identity statements since the is in those statements is the is of predication rather than of identity instead they should be translated using a predicate letter using g to designate god and j to designate jesus and the predicate letter e for the property of being eternal the first premise is eg and the conclusion is ej the second premise appears to contain an is of identity in which case it can be properly symbolized as j g but your remark that jesus is a subset of god suggests that strict identity is not desired here if however the first premise means that all members making up the set god have the property of being eternal the same conclusion follows jim lippard lippard ccit arizona edu dept of philosophy lippard arizvms bitnet university of arizona tucson az
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses in article chrisb baarnie chrisb tafe sa edu au chris bell writes jbrown batman bmd trw com writes my syllogism is of the form a is b c is a therefore c is b this is a logically valid construction your syllogism however is of the form a is b c is b therefore c is a therefore yours is a logically invalid construction and your comments don t apply if all of those are is s of identity both syllogisms are valid if however b is a predicate then the second syllogism is invalid the first syllogism as you have pointed out is valid whether b is a predicate or designates an individual jim lippard lippard ccit arizona edu dept of philosophy lippard arizvms bitnet university of arizona tucson az
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts student writes somewhere roger colin shouse writes about radical gay dogma somewhere else he claims not to claim to have a claim to knowing those he doesn t know there are at least twenty instances of this kind of muddleheaded fourth reich sophistique shit in his postings maybe more in fact i m not sure the instances could be counted because they reproduce like a virus the more you consider his words my question is this what is the best response to weasels like shouse and stan krieger possibilities a study them dispassionately and figure out how they work then remember what you ve learned so as to combat them when they or their clones get into office contribute your insights to your favorite abnormal psych ward b learn to overcome your repugnance for serial murder this posting is totally uncalled for in rec scouting the point has been raised and has been answered roger and i have clearly stated our support of the bsa position on the issue specifically that homosexual behavior constitutes a violation of the scout oath specifically the promise to live morally straight there is really nothing else to discuss trying to cloud the issue with comparisons to blacks or other minorities is also meaningless because it s like comparing apples to oranges i e people can t control their race but they can control their behavior what else is there to possibly discuss on rec scouting on this issue nobody including bsa is denying anybody the right to live and or worship as they please or don t please but it doesn t mean that bsa is the big bad wolf for adhering to the recognized positive religious and moral standards on which our society has been established and on which it should continue to be based stan krieger all opinions advice or suggestions even unix system laboratories if related to my employment are my own summit nj smk usl com
alt.atheism	re a little too satanic in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes pnanci ann miller writes p p my favorite reply to the you are being too literal minded complaint is p that if the bible is really inspired by god and if it is really that p important to him then he would make damn certain all the translators and p scribes and people interpreting and copying it were getting it right p literally if not then why should i put any merit at all in something p that has been corrupted over and over and over by man even if it was p originally inspired by god p pthe corrupted over and over theory is pretty weak comparison of the pcurrent hebrew text with old versions and translations shows that the text phas in fact changed very little over a space of some two millennia this pshouldn t be all that suprising people who believe in a text in this manner pare likely to makes some pains to make good copies well corrupted the first time is good enough seeing that the bible was constructed years after jesus s death in the text of merchants ie owe this and owe that i wonder how anyone can take the literal word seriously obviously it was not intended for such nonsense otherwise the authors of the bible would not need to plagerize sp off of the asians for most of the contents that can be interperated to make sense
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution p my atheism is incidental and the question of god is trivial p p but p p it matters a great deal to me when idiots try to force their belief on me p when they try to enforce their creation myths to be taught as scientific p fact in school when they tell me i can have no morals because morals are p from god when a successful presidential candidate says that an atheist p shouldn t be considered a citizen and couldn t be patriotic because after p all this is one nation under god when the fundies try to take over the p party that may well provide the next president of the united states of p america so that they can force their beliefs on the rest of the country p et cetera p p that s why i subscribe to alt atheism p p and in the middle of this people who aren t mind readers pop up on p alt atheism to tell me what i do or don t believe or to concoct some p straw man reason why i don t share their particular belief p p you think i should just accept this p p this isn t particularly a dig at fundamentalist christians i have been p told on alt atheism that i reject allah because i am too proud to embrace p islam and that i reject krishna because my eyes are closed but most of p the religious nuts who post on alt atheism are some kind of militant p christian who can t accept that others don t share their beliefs this p kind of stuff should be kept on talk religion misc where it belongs p p atheism isn t a belief it s the absence of belief in any gods p p p do you have a problem with this p p p bill pfirst i would like to say that atheism is in fact a belief it is a beilief pbecause a belief in something you hold to with ador and faith an atheist says there are no gods this cannot be proven therefore you are excepting this on pfaith alone that is a belief secondly you complain so much about how the pfundamental christians are trying to force their beliefs on you but you don t pmention anything about how the atheists such as madamme murry o hare founder pof the atheists association in austin texas and robert sherman from the chicago area have been trying to force their beliefs on everyone by trying to get rid of god from our society by banning religious paintings from parks during chistmas forcing cities to change their town seals if there is any mention of god in it like sherman has done or trying to get the slogan in god we trust off of the american currency you also talk about creation myths as if they are in fact myths and tha p p p phave concrete evidece of this you probably pdon t and that just enforces my point that your atheism is just as much belief as my christianity if this is not so please do show me why it isn t pmark covalt the only real problem i have with the argument of christianity is that they seem to ignore their origin that being asiatic in origin as soon as christians become the good non ego centric buddhists they are supposed to be then i might listen my opinion i speak not for my place of employment but i should christ was over rated and will the atf follow koresh the current christ through his ascention to heaven
alt.atheism	re alt atheism faq introduction to atheism i have an addition to the faq regarding why are there no atheist hospitals if i recall correctly johns hopkins was built to provide medical services without the backing of a religious group thus making it a hospital dedicated to the glory of weak atheism might someone check up on this brian evans bad mood bad mood sure i m in a bad mood bevans carina unm edu i haven t had sex ever virgin mary
alt.atheism	re theists posting in article c ux aic ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes stuff deleted is there a concordance for the faq which translation is considered most authoritative is there an orthodox commentary for the faq available is there one faq for militant atheists and another for moderate atheists or do you all read from the same faq if so how do you resolve differences of interpretation hmmmmmmmmmmmm i can put the same question to followers of any religion how do you moslems resolve differences of opinion don t tell me that there is one interpretation of the quran read the soc culture newsgroups you will zillions of different interpretations naren naren tekig pen tek com all standard disclaimers apply
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes more horrible deaths resulted from atheism than anything else list of killings in the name of religion iran iraq war civil war in sudan riots in india pakistan in massacares in bangladesh in inquistions in america in s x million x crusades i am sure that people can add a lot more to the list i wonder what bobby has to say about the above standard excuses will not be accepted naren all standard disclaimers apply
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism nanci ann miller nm w andrew cmu edu writes snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes more horrible deaths resulted from atheism than anything else there are definitely quite a few horrible deaths as the result of both atheists and theists perhaps since i m a bit weak on history somone here would like to give a list of wars caused led by theists this thread seems to be arguing the validity of a religious viewpoint according to some utilitarian principle i e atheism religion is wrong because it causes death the underlying moral is that death is wrong this is a rather arbitrary measure of validity get some epistemology richard harlequin com internet richard harlequin co uk internet rptb uk ac cambridge phoenix janet zen buddhist
alt.atheism	re radical agnostic not reply to zazen austin ibm com e h welbon there is no means that i can possibly think of to prove beyond doubt that a god does not exist but if anyone has one by all means tell me what it is therefore lacking this ability of absolute proof being an atheist becomes an act of faith in and of itself and this i cannot accept i accept nothing on blind faith invisible pink flying unicorns need i say more i harbor no beliefs at all there is no good evidence for god existing or not some folks call this agnosticism it does not suffer from blind faith at all i think of it as don t worry be happy for many atheists the lack of belief in gods is secondary to an epistemological consideration what do we accept as a reliable way of knowing there are no known valid logical arguments for the existence of gods nor is there any empirical evidence that they exist most philosophers and theologians agree that the idea of a god is one that must be accepted on faith faith is belief without a sound logical basis or empirical evidence it is a reliable way of knowing there is probably nothing else most people would accept in the absence of any possibility of proof even when we agree to take someone elses word on faith we just mean that having found this person to be reliable in the past we judge him likely to be a reliable source now if we find faith less reliable than logic and empirical evidence everywhere else why assume it will provide reliable knowledge about gods the difference between the atheist and the theist is fundamentally then one of whether or not faith is held to be a reliable way of knowing rather than as some agnostic posters would have it whether ones faith is in gods or no gods the theist believes that faith is an acceptable basis for a belief in gods even if he rejects faith as reliable at other times for example in his work as a scientist the atheist believes that only logic and empirical evidence lead to reliable knowledge agnosticism seems to me a less defensible position than theism or atheism unless one is a sceptic in regards to all other knowledge without evidence why should we believe in gods rather than santa claus or the easter bunny i would also like to point out as others have that the atheist doesn t require absolute knowledge of the lack of gods i don t believe that there is any such thing as absolute knowledge atheism is the best and simplest theory to fit the lack of facts and so should be held until contrary evidence is found david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	re is keith as ignorant as he seems mam mouse cmhnet org mike mcangus writes no everything wouldn t be ok but it would be a start now wait if the religious organizations were no longer tax exempt what other beef could you have they would then have as much right to lobby as would any other group you asked would everything be okay i answered no everything encompasses more than just the tax exempt status of religious organizations well if everything wouldn t be okay then tell us what it is that wouldn t be okay that is if religions were no longer tax exempt then what would be wrong with their lobbying or otherwise attempting to influence politics keith
alt.atheism	re keith schneider stealth poster mam mouse cmhnet org mike mcangus writes let me see if i understand what you are saying in order to talk knowledgeably about religion atheists must first have been so immersed in a religion that only the rare individual could have left no you don t understand i said that i don t think people can discuss the subjective merits of religion objectively this should be obvious people here have said that everyone would be better off without religion but this almost certainly isn t true but really are you threatened by the motto or by the people that use it the motto is a tool let s try to take away the tool but guns and axes are tools both of which have been used for murder should both be taken away that is to say i don t think motto misuse warrants its removal at least not in this case keith
alt.atheism	re keith schneider stealth poster cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes i somewhat agree with u however what it comes to theist religion it s a different matter that s because religion is like a drug once u use it it s very difficult to get out of it that s because in order to experience a religion u necessarily have to have blind faith and once u have the blind faith it s very diffcult for you to reason yourself back to atheism again therefore it s unreasonable to ask people to try religion in order to judge it it s like asking people to try dying to find out what death is like well now we can t judge death until we are dead right so why should we judge religion without having experienced it people have said that religion is bad by any account and that it is in no way useful etc but i don t totally agree with this of course we cannot really say how the religious folk would act had they not been exposed to religion but some people at least seemed to be helped in some ways by it so basically we can not judge whether religion is the right route for a given individual or even for a general population we can say that it is not best for us personally at least you can choose not to use religion might be hard to try to find out its benefits as you state above keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists mmwang adobe com michael wang writes i was looking for a rigorous definition because otherwise we would be spending the rest of our lives arguing what a christian really believes i don t think we need to argue about this ks do you think that the motto points out that this country is proud ks of its freedom of religion and that this is something that ks distinguishes us from many other countries mw no ks well your opinion is not shared by most people i gather perhaps not but that is because those seeking to make government recognize christianity as the dominant religion in this country do not think they are infringing on the rights of others who do not share their beliefs yes but also many people who are not trying to make government recognize christianity as the dominant religion in this country do no think the motto infringes upon the rights of others who do not share their beliefs and actually i think that the government already does recognize that christianity is the dominant religion in this country i mean it is don t you realize recognize this this isn t to say that we are supposed to believe the teachings of christianity just that most people do like i ve said before i personally don t think the motto is a major concern if you agree with me then what are we discussing ks since most people don t seem to associate christmas with jesus much ks anymore i don t see what the problem is can you prove your assertion that most people in the u s don t associate christmas with jesus anymore no but i hear quite a bit about christmas and little if anything about jesus wouldn t this figure be more prominent if the holiday were really associated to a high degree with him or are you saying that the association with jesus is on a personal level and that everyone thinks about it but just never talks about it that is can you prove that most people do associate christmas most importantly with jesus anyways the point again is that there are people who do associate christmas with jesus it doesn t matter if these people are a majority or not i think the numbers do matter it takes a majority or at least a majority of those in power to discriminate doesn t it keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes the probability that the automobile system will kill someone innocent in an accident goes asymptotically close to just like the court system however anyone who doesn t like the automobile system can opt out as i have this isn t true many people are forced to use the automobile system i certainly don t use it by choice if there were other ways of getting around i d do it secondly we do try to make the automobile system as safe as possible because we do recognize the danger to the innocent whereas the us the current example is not trying to make the court system safer which it could fairly easily do by replacing fatal punishments with non fatal punishments but i think that the court system has been refined over hundreds of years in the us britain and other countries we have tried to make it as fair as possible can it be made better without removing the death penalty besides life imprisonment sounds like a fatal punishment to me keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists dace shrike und ac za roy dace writes keith allan schneider keith cco caltech edu wrote some soldiers are dependent on religion for a number of purposes and some are no doubt dependent on cocaine yet i don t see the military paying for coca fields while religion certainly has some benefits in a combat situation what are the benefits of cocaine keith
alt.atheism	re pompous ass mvs psuvm psu edu writes many people would probably think especially if the fanatics propogandized this that this was a conflict between the atheists and the religious many would get the impression that we were trying to outlaw religion if we contintue to try to remove all things with a religious reference that s not what the people i ve asked think perhaps you would be right if you said the fundamentalists would think this way after all they think they are being oppressed when they are not allowed to oppress however you have not shown where you get this idea that many people would probably think it s atheism vs religion winner take all as far as i can tell it is your groundless prediction that this will happen but you haven t taken into the account of propoganda remember if you asked germans before wwii if the jews shoudl be slaughtered they would probably answer no but after the propoganda machine rolled through at least some were able to tolerate it you see it only takes a small group of fanatics to whip up a general frenzy the propoganda machines have been in gear over a number of issues including abortion and gays look at some of the things that have happened well so far they have passed one amendment which is currently under intense scrutiny and they have failed to outlaw abortion which is their prime goal on that issue yep they seem sooo effective sure well they haven t managed to outlaw abortion due to the possible objectivity of the courts but they have managed to create quite a few problems for people that wanted to have an abortion they could create similar problems for us and it could be worse they can try to stop abortions by blocking clinics etc but imagine what they d have to do to stop atheism besides the margin of error is very large when you only talk to two people better than your one that is your opinion also i have branched out and the informal survey is up over half a dozen now and what have they said were you questions unbiased keith you would claim that my questions are biased the minute i posted them because the answers agreed with me everyone i have asked about the possible removal of the motto the christian portion has expressed regret about its loss because they like it however when it is pointed out to them that a new motto will not be in the works none have expressed the desire to rape murder pillage etc which you have basically claimed so you are able to convince them individually but could you convince a whole room of them a whole nation as for the atheist portion i know some around here they have all expressed disgust with the motto some noted being harassed by christians who used the motto to try to seem justified and all would see it gone yes i d be glad if it were gone to i ve never supported it however i think that it is a minor problem that can be easily ignored contrasted with what could happen an what may be likely which christians designed the motto does the motto say anything about jesus why do you think that it refers only to christians christians wrote it christians think that their religion is right and all others are wrong therefore why would they include other religions in the realm of being correct i doubt that any other religions were meant to be included well i am not clear on the religious convictions of francis scott key the motto can be attributed to him but it is at least clear that he believed in a god and surely there are a few christians that think as you say but i don t think that most do do you think that all christians actively despise other religions most that i have met haven t and don t do so no christian that i have queried thinks it means anything but them and only them why not ask some people of other faiths sorry i would but christianity is just so awfully popular around here suppose you could ask a few people well i have asked a hindu moselem and a few jews and all of them think that it is applicable to them of course i can t say that these people just some that i know pretty well are accurate representations of their faiths it is always a good idea to assume that there were dissenting views on any given issue you are assuming that all the views were the same and nothing leads to this conclusion without evidence to the contrary i doubt that there were dissenting opinions you claim there were provide some evidence for your assertion well i d really like to and i ve tried but i really don t know where to get access to congressional records from the s can anyone help out here comparing christians to nazis interesting only in the sense that neither can probably convinced to change their beliefs no again the motto on the money doesn t cost you anything extra however if you abolished the motto we d all have to pay to have all the dies and plates redone like people paid before to get them changed to have the motto on them you now need to show that there is a good reason to change everything again also i doubt that they use th same plates for more than a year s printing this would make it easy to remove the motto simply make next year s plates without it your claim evidently is that they will have to pay extra somewhere provide some evidence for this assertion so are you saying that they redesign the plates each year anyway your whole argument conveniently deleted i see was that the motto somehow costs us all a lot of money this is just not correct the ones i read didn t mention anything about jesus i think the issue was concerning the distinction between religion and not how could it be between religious and not religious the motto refers to god it is a religious motto the question is whether or not it is only christian you say it is more i doubt this provide some evidence for this assertion that is to say the religion of this country and the non religion of the ussr that was what most of those quotes were about and some included all atheists in general as well i don t think that any of the quotes although i seem to have lost them mentioned anything at all about jesus they advocated religion over non religion a specific religion was not mentioned you have missed this point i said that the motto didn t say anything about anyone in particular that is the motto doesn t imply anything about your particular beliefs it doesn t say that everyone trusts in some form of god only that the nation on the whole does we have been through this before it s obvious it does not include me this much is beyond doubt your claim again is that the motto refers to more than christians based on the facts that christianity says all other religions are wrong and because it seems that the motto was written by christians i doubt your claim so you are saying that all christians must believe that all other religions should be outlawed just because they think they are wrong that s silly i think the flat earthers are wrong but i don t advocate their banishment based on this idea i doubt that any additional expense would even be incurred by removing the motto provide some evidence for your claim that it would i think that any such cost would be insignificant i mentioned the slight cost because you said that the motto was costing us a lot of money by being on our currency disregarding the digression of the other motto if it is used for harassment and no other purpose has been found for it why should it not be removed well mottos in general don t really have purposes i don t think it should be removed because i think the benefit would be outweighed by the consequences and do you know what the vote was were there other opinions do you think that the main reason the motto was required by law was to bother atheists do you think that this is what the majority of congress at the time had in mind if you do then show why again it is the opinion of the people who put it there that i am concerned with then you should be concerned with the opinion of the entire congress again it is not necessary that the complete majority shared the purpose of confronting godless communism with this motto why not it is the majority that put it there the general public probably does not know about the anti atheist intent of a few people in the s either i daresay more people remember the s than the time when key wrote the anthem but do they remember the debate surrounding the motto do they remember that some people intended it to be a message against atheists why don t you include this in your little survey that you were conducting you claim here that scientists would believe someone s claims i doubt this provide evidence for your assertion what should i ask some scientists the probability that something einstein said about relativity is worthy i mean if einstein said it there s a good chance that it was right at least at the time as for the courts the method scientists use can be applied i need not agree with the court by default because of a good record you need not agree with them all of the time but you would certainly think that their decisions would be good evidence in favor of some point what but you said you didn t agree with the court because they allowed congress to attempt to make an amendment prohibiting flag burning if you don t realize that something like this is external to the realm of the court s power then how can i be confident that you know anything about the court s powers i mean if you don t know how the court works how can you participate in a discussion of the court a judge can go to speak before congress and still you ignore the abortion gag rule as you make your claims on abortion no i think that it would be clearly inappropriate for a supreme court justice to testify before congress during the consideration of a constitutional amendment and in order for the court to rule on something a case usually must be presented mushrooms flowers trees buildings signs whatever the analogy is the same just because something that i might find offensive is present doesn t mean that my rights are being violated we are talking about something put there by people keith not a mushroom no one caused that mushroom to exist unless you re finding things offensive in a mushroom farm yes some mushrooms can be planted and i don t appreciate mushrooms on my pizza either this is not the case with the motto and you re ignoring the harassment which is the only known result of the motto and you re ignoring that somewhere along the line people were forced to put the motto there who was forced to put the motto there what do you mean keith
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses suopanki stekt oulu fi writes on apr mst jbrown batman bmd trw com said god is eternal a b jesus is god c a therefore jesus is eternal c b this works both logically and mathematically god is of the set of things which are eternal jesus is a subset of god therefore jesus belongs to the set of things which are eternal everything isn t always so logical mercedes is a car that girl is mercedes therefore that girl is a car unfortunately your phrasing is ambiguous re writing more carefully we have at least two possibilities the first things called mercedes are cars that girl is called mercedes therefore that girl is a car that is entirely valid as a piece of logical deduction it is not sound because the first statement is false similarly i would hold that jim s example is valid but not sound another possible interpretation of what you wrote is there exists at least one car called mercedes that girl is called mercedes therefore that girl is a car which isn t valid mathew
alt.atheism	re political atheists keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes mathew mathew mantis co uk writes perhaps we shouldn t imprision people if we could watch them closely instead the cost would probably be similar especially if we just implanted some sort of electronic device why wait until they commit the crime why not implant such devices in potential criminals like communists and atheists sorry i don t follow your reasoning you are proposing to punish people before they commit a crime what justification do you have for this look up irony keith mathew
alt.atheism	re political atheists keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes mathew mathew mantis co uk writes as for rape surely there the burden of guilt is solely on the rapist not so if you are thrown into a cage with a tiger and get mauled do you blame the tiger as far as i know tigers are not sentient if i were pushed into a pool with some dolphins and they attacked me i might be inclined to blame the dolphins rather than the person doing the pushing as a dolphins are not usually aggressive and b they seem to have well developed brains and a capacity for abstract thought as a matter of fact tigers rarely attack humans unless the human provokes them of course if they are in a cage which is far too small that might count as provocation mathew
alt.atheism	re political atheists kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes i am almost sure that zyklon b is immediate and painless method of death if not insert soem other form and ethnic and minority groups have been killed mutilated and exterminated through out history so i guess it was not unusual so you would agree that the holocost would be allowed under the us constitution in so far the punishment i doubt they recieved what would be considered a fair trial by us standards don t be so sure look what happened to japanese citizens in the us during world war ii if you re prepared to say let s round these people up and stick them in a concentration camp without trial it s only a short step to gassing them without trial after all it seems that the nazis originally only intended to imprison the jews the final solution was dreamt up partly because they couldn t afford to run the camps because of the devastation caused by goering s total war those who weren t gassed generally died of malnutrition or disease mathew
alt.atheism	re atheist i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article ii i b w w mantis co uk tony lezard tony mantis co uk writes deletion my opinion is that the strong atheist position requires too much belief for me to be comfortable with any strong atheists out there care to comment humans just come up with the idea of a spiritual parent it is one of the artifacts of human thought the evidence for that is quite overwhelming and the information content of the conceived is vanishing in other words if there were gods they would hardly make sense and it is possible to explain the phenomenon of religion without gods the concept is useless and i don t have to introduce new assumptions in order to show that no leap of faith required for me your mileage may vary yes i fully agree with that but is it i don t believe gods exist or i believe no gods exist as mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka pointed out it all hinges on what you take the word believe to mean unfortunately this is bound up in the definitions of strong and weak atheism at least according to the faq atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of god some atheists go further and believe that god does not exist the former is often referred to as the weak atheist position and the latter as strong atheism it is important to note the difference between these two positions weak atheism is simple scepticism disbelief in the existence of god strong atheism is a positive belief that god does not exist please do not fall into the trap of assuming that all atheists are strong atheists from mathew s an introduction to atheism version last modified apr should the faq be clarified to try to pin down this notion of belief can it tony lezard is tony mantis co uk or tony mantis co uk uknet ac uk or things like tony uk co mantis uk ac nsfnet relay or last resort arl phx cam ac uk pgp public key available on request
alt.atheism	re political atheists mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes i think you mean circular not recursive but that is semantics recursiveness has no problems it is just horribly inefficient just ask any assembly programmer tail recursive functions in scheme are at least as efficient as iterative loops anyone who doesn t program in assembler will have heard of optimizing compilers mathew
alt.atheism	re an anecdote about islam in bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu writes deletia i don t understand the point of this petty sarcasm it is a basic principle of islam that if one is born muslim or one says i testify that there is no god but god and mohammad is a prophet of god that so long as one does not explicitly reject islam by word then one must be considered muslim by all muslims so the phenomenon you re attempting to make into a general rule or psychology is a direct odds with basic islamic principles if you want to attack islam you could do better than than to argue against something that islam explicitly contradicts in the deletions somewhere it mentioned something about chopping off of hands being a punishment for theft in saudi arabia assuming this is so i wouldn t know and assuming it is done by people fitting your requirement for muslim which i find highly likely then would you please try to convince bobby mozumder that muslims chop people s hands off come back when you ve succeeded disclaimer it s great to be young and insane
alt.atheism	a fundamental contradiction was a visit from jws jbrown batman bmd trw com writes will is self determination in other words god created conscious beings who have the ability to choose between moral choices independently of god all will therefore is free will the above is probably not the most representative paragraph but i thought i d hop on anyway what strikes me as self contradicting in the fable of lucifer s fall which by the way i seem to recall to be more speculation than based on biblical text but my ex rcism may be showing is that as benedikt pointed out lucifer had perfect nature yet he had the free will to choose evil but where did that choice come from we know from genesis that eve was offered an opportunity to sin by a tempter which many assume was satan but how did lucifer discover invent create call the action what you will something that god had not given origin to also where in the bible is there mention of lucifer s free will we make a big fuss about mankind having free will but it strikes me as being an after the fact rationalisation and in fact like salvation not one that all christians believe in identically at least in my mind salvation and free will are very tightly coupled but then my theology was roman catholic still how do theologian explain lucifer s fall if lucifer had perfect nature did man how could he fall how could he execute an act that a contradicted his nature and b in effect cause evil to exist for the first time lucio de re lucio proxima alt za tab stops at four
alt.atheism	re atheist tony lezard tony mantis co uk writes my opinion is that the strong atheist position requires too much belief for me to be comfortable with any strong atheists out there care to comment as far as i can tell strong atheists are far outnumbered on alt atheism by weak atheists at the cost of repudiating the faq i think too much is made of the strong vs weak atheism issue although in the context of alt atheism where we re continually attacked on the basis that strong atheists believe in the non existence of god i think the separation is a valid one to cover my arse what i m trying to say is that there is an infinitely grey area between weak and strong as well as between strong and the unattainable mathematical atheism i wish whereas i logically can only support the weak atheist position in effect i am a strong atheist and wish i could be a mathematical one to justify my strong atheist position i believe i need only show that the evidence presented in favour of any of the gods under scrutiny is faulty if i read the faq correctly no argument for the existence of god generic as represented by mainstream theologians has ever been found to be unassailable to me this is adequate evidence that the real god is undefinable or at least no definition has yet been found to be watertight which in turn i accept as sufficient to base a disbelief in each and every conceivable god i m a little fuzzy on the edges though so opinions are welcome but perhaps we should change the thread subject lucio de re lucio proxima alt za tab stops at four
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes why would the rushdie case be particularly legitimate as i ve said elsewhere on this issue rushdie s actions had effects in islamic countries so that it is not so simple to say that he didn t commit a crime in an islamic country actually it is simple a person p has committed a crime c in country x if p was within the borders of x at the time when c was committed it doesn t matter if the physical manifestation of c is outside x for instance if i hack into nasa s ames research lab and delete all their files i have committed a crime in the united kingdom if the us authorities wish to prosecute me under us law rather than uk law they have no automatic right to do so this is why the net authorities in the us tried to put pressure on some sites in holland holland had no anti cracking legislation and so it was viewed as a hacker haven by some us system administrators similarly a company called red hot television is broadcasting pornographic material which can be received in britain if they were broadcasting in britain they would be committing a crime but they are not they are broadcasting from denmark so the british government is powerless to do anything about it in spite of the apparent law breaking of course i m not a lawyer so i could be wrong more confusingly i could be right in some countries but not in others mathew
alt.atheism	re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in cases of prostitution both the man and the prostitute would be punished in public quite severely deletion no gregg you cannot say a is lenient and a punishes severely in public unless of course it is one of the exceptions implied by almost all matters that depends on the statistics and who is punished in public if some power for example nothing islamic about it allows men to rape women five times before blowing the rapist s head off in public then i d call that leniency wouldn t you you have given that example it is not lenient end of argument and chopping off the hands or heads of people is not lenient either it rather appears that you are internalized the claims about the legal system without checking if they suit the description and wasn t the argument that it takes five men to rape a woman according to islamic law while i don t approve of it i think both the prostitute and the customer have the right to do what they do in other words punishing them is a violation of their rights and to punish them severely in public is just another pointer to the hysteria connected with sexuality in so many religions believe what you like no i even believe what i don t like can you give better answers than that have you got any evidence for your probably opposite claims in this case i don t see why i should accept the complex ridden views of an oriental goatherd ah yes i forget that the west is historically so much without sexual neurosis oriental goatherd really intellectual a fact if memory serves and most will see the connection between the primitive machism in the orient and in islam if people agree on having sex it is fine and i would assume that a god would have a clue of what the detrimental effects of supressing it are huh ever heard of aids of course you ll probably go on to say that god must be evil because he allows the disease to exist bla bla as usually you miss the point aids is neither spread only through sex nor necessarily spread by having sex futher the point is a very important point the urge for sex is stronger than the fear of aids it is even stronger than the religious attempts to channel or to forbid sex the consequences of suppressing sex are worse than the consequences of aids please note that the idea that everybody would end up with aids when sex is not controlled is completely counterfactual and since you have brought up the point is your god evil or not benedikt
alt.atheism	re biblical rape in article apr watson ibm com strom watson ibm com rob strom writes in article ba f c i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes i didn t have time to read the rest of the posting but i had to respond to this i am absolutely not a messianic jew another mistake sorry i should have read alt messianic more carefully benedikt
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts in article apr midway uchicago edu shou midway uchicago edu writes in article pi dhinn ub dsi dsinc com perry dsinc com jim perry writes bigots never concede that their bigotry is irrational it is other people who determine that by examining their arguments no i expected it you ve set yourself up a wonderful little world where a bigot is whomever you say it is this is very comfortable for you imagine never having to entertain an argument against your belief system simply accuse the person making of being a bigot well this particular thread of vituperation slopped its venom over into alt atheism where we spend most of our time entertaining arguments against our belief system without resorting to accusing others of bigotry it s somewhat ironic that our exposure to bigotry happens in this instance to have originated in rec scouting since i always understood scouting to teach tolerance and diversity i understand bigotry to be irrational prejudice against other people who happen to be of a different race religion ethnic background sex or other inconsequential characteristics all the evidence i ve seen indicates that sexual orientation and lack of belief in gods are exactly such inconsequential characteristics thus pending further evidence i conclude that those who show prejudice against such people are bigots and organizations that exclude such people are discriminatory jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution in article pq tinn lp senator bedfellow mit edu bobs thnext mit edu robert singleton writes deletion i will argue that your latter statement i believe that no gods exist does rest upon faith that is if you are making a positive statement that no gods exist strong atheism rather than merely saying i don t know and therefore don t believe in them and don t not believe in then weak atheism once again to not believe in god is different than saying i believe that god does not exist i still maintain the position even after reading the faqs that strong atheism requires faith no it in the way it is usually used in my view you are saying here that driving a car requires faith that the car drives for me it is a conclusion and i have no more faith in it than i have in the premises and the argument used but first let me say the following we might have a language problem here in regards to faith and existence i as a christian maintain that god does not exist to exist means to have being in space and time god does not have being god is being kierkegaard once said that god does not exist he is eternal with this said i feel it s rather pointless to debate the so called existence of god and that is not what i m doing here i believe that god is the source and ground of being when you say that god does not exist i also accept this statement but we obviously mean two different things by it however in what follows i will use the phrase the existence of god in it s usual sense and this is the sense that i think you are using it i would like a clarification upon what you mean by the existence of god no that s a word game the term god is used in a different way usually when you use a different definition it is your thing but until it is commonly accepted you would have to say the way i define god is and that does not exist it is existence itself so i say it does not exist interestingly there are those who say that existence exists is one of the indubitable statements possible further saying god is existence is either a waste of time existence is already used and there is no need to replace it by god or you are implying more with it in which case your definition and your argument so far are incomplete making it a fallacy deletion one can never prove that god does or does not exist when you say that you believe god does not exist and that this is an opinion based upon observation i will have to ask what observtions are you refering to there are no observations pro or con that are valid here in establishing a positive belief deletion where does that follow aren t observations based on the assumption that something exists and wouldn t you say there is a level of definition that the assumption god is is meaningful if not i would reject that concept anyway so where is your evidence for that god is is meaningful at some level benedikt
alt.atheism	re is morality constant was re biblical rape this frayed thread has turned into a patented alt atheism on ping pong game and i don t have any strong disagreement so i ll try to stick to the one thing i don t quite follow about the argument it seems to me that there is a contradiction in arguing that the bible was enlightened for its times i e closer to what we would consider morally good based on our standards and past experience on the one hand i hope this summarizes this argument adequately and on the other hand in article apr watson ibm com strom watson ibm com rob strom writes in article phpe inn g dsi dsinc com perry dsinc com jim perry writes disclaimer i m speaking from the jewish perspective where the bible means what many call the old testament and where the interpretation is not necessarily the raw text but instead the court cases commentaries and traditions passed down through jewish communities this seems the crux to me if you judge the bible according to a long line of traditions and interpretations coming down to the current day rather than on its own merits as a cultural artifact then of course it will correspond more closely with more contemporary values but if that s how the bible is actually being used today shouldn t that be how we should judge it if most people use scissors to cut paper shouldn t consumer s reports test scissors for paper cutting ability even though scissors may have been designed originally to cut cloth that s possibly a good way to judge the use of the bible in teaching jewish morality today but it hardly seems fair to claim that this highly interpreted version is what was enlightened for its times to attempt to extend the analogy this is like saying that the original scissor makers were unusually advanced at paper cutting for their times even though they only ever cut cloth and had never even heard of paper i m not arguing that the bible is disgusting though some of the history depicted in it is by modern standards however history is full of similar abuses and i don t think the biblical accounts are worse than their contemporaries or possibly ours on the other hand i don t know of any reason to think the history described in the bible shows less abuse than their contemporaries or ours that complex and benign moral traditions have evolved based on particular mythic interpretations of that history is interesting but i still don t think it fair to take that long tradition of interpretation and use it to attack condemnation of the original history jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re political atheists mathew mathew mantis co uk writes as for rape surely there the burden of guilt is solely on the rapist unless you force someone to live with the rapist against his will in which case part of the responsibility is yours i m sorry but i can t accept that unless the rapist was hypnotized or something i view him as solely responsible for his actions not necessarily especially if the rapist is known as such for instance if you intentionally stick your finger into a loaded mousetrap and get snapped whose fault is it keith
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men compare that with how homos are raised do a study and you will get my point oh bobby you re priceless did i ever tell you that my policy with bobby s posts should anyone give a damn is to flick through the thread at high speed searching for posts of bobby s which have generated a whole pile of followups then go in and extract the hilarious quote inevitably present for sig purposes works for me for the guy who said he s just arrived and asked whether bobby s for real you betcha welcome to alt atheism and rest assured that it gets worse i have a few pearls of wisdom from bobby which i reproduce below is anyone keith keeping a big file of such stuff in allah s infinite wisdom the universe was created from nothing just by saying be and it became therefore allah exists bobby mozumder proving the existence of allah wait you just said that humans are rarely reasonable doesn t that contradict atheism where everything is explained through logic and reason this is the contradiction in atheism that proves it false bobby mozumder proving the existence of allah plus to the believer it would be contradictory to the quran for allah not to exist bobby mozumder proving the existence of allah and now one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men compare that with how homos are raised do a study and you will get my point bobby mozumder being islamically rigorous on alt atheism mmmmm quality and quantity from the new voice of islam pbuh cheers simon simon clippingdale simon dcs warwick ac uk department of computer science tel university of warwick fax coventry cv al u k
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts in article apr cbnewsl cb att com stank cbnewsl cb att com stan krieger writes the point has been raised and has been answered roger and i have clearly stated our support of the bsa position on the issue specifically that homosexual behavior constitutes a violation of the scout oath specifically the promise to live morally straight please define morally straight and don t even try saying that straight as it is used here implies only hetersexual behavior eg straight as in the slang word opposite to gay this is alot like family values everyone is talking about them but misteriously no one knows what they are one thing that relates is among navy men that get tatoos that say mom because of the love of their mom it makes for more virile men bobby mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu april the one true muslim left in the world
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts in article apr cbnewsl cb att com stank cbnewsl cb att com stan krieger writes roger and i have clearly stated our support of the bsa position on the issue specifically that homosexual behavior constitutes a violation of the scout oath specifically the promise to live morally straight there is really nothing else to discuss apparently not in response to his claim that it terrifies gay people not to be able to indoctrinate children to our lifestyle or words to that effect i sent roger a very calm carefully written detailed letter explaining simply why the bsa policy does indeed terrify me i did not use inflammatory language and left myself extremely open for an answer thus far i have not received an answer i can conclude only that roger considers his position either indefensible or simply not worth defending trying to cloud the issue with comparisons to blacks or other minorities is also meaningless because it s like comparing apples to oranges i e people can t control their race but they can control their behavior in fact that s exactly the point people can control their behavior because of that fact there is no need for a blanket ban on homosexuals what else is there to possibly discuss on rec scouting on this issue you tell me tim pierce usted es la de la tele eh la madre twpierce unix amherst edu del asesino ay que graciosa bitnet twpierce amherst pedro almodovar
alt.atheism	re biblical rape in article apr watson ibm com strom watson ibm com rob strom writes deletion the thread biblical rape was initiated by david o hunt here is his posting in article feu ko xsf kpc p andrew cmu edu david o hunt bluelobster cmu edu writes i m pretty sure i ve seen biblical rules for when it s allowable to rape prisoners what the codes are about that etc could some more knowledgable soul than i please let me know some references he asked a very narrow question and i gave a very narrow answer yes sorry i have got that wrong my apology deletion no david hunt s post didn t mention a god nor did my response you were the first to bring up the idea of the bible being given by god most jews don t believe this in any literal sense so no fun but i must have met the minority then and given by god refers to any action whereby a god god causes or better effects something rob i am not intimate with jewish theology but i understand that you are a messianic jew correct me if i am wrong but it appears that the views of messianic jews on metaphysics is different to that of the majority of jews while jewish theology overall is quite distinct from the christianic god views i have heard that it is possible for jews to attribute evil to their god an no no for christians the bible is still seen as effect of the interaction of some god with man deletion no i thought we agreed that though jews disagree there are a set of core beliefs that they do agree upon one of which is that the commandments are accessible and written in the language of the time and another of which is that there must be a legal system to update them the context was metaphysics even when the process of adapting the commandments is not transcendent the justification of the process lie in metaphysic specualtion i wonder how you break out of the shackles of having metaphysics in your system deletion could you explain this with respect to the original commandments being discussed that is the commandment that says if you feel like raping a woman prisoner you should instead wait and marry her what about the way this commandment is given invalidates it is is in a book that commands to commit genocide among other reprehensible deeds the context is repulsive and it is foul play imo to invoke some relatively enlightened passages as an example for the content of the whole book big deletion the point is that i see that there is a necessary connection between the theology you use and the interpretation of the bible only very loosely my interpretation of the bible is based on a long tradition of jewish scholars interpreting the bible theology doesn t really enter into it there are jewish atheists who interpret the laws of charity essentially the same way i do no not the interpretation of some laws but the interpretation of the bible as in the example that sodom and gomorrha mean argue with god the whole idea that it is metaphorically and yet allows you to argue with a god whatever that means that alone is a theo logic question is proof of a theology used you pose another metaphysical riddle no you do well you wrote this fine so we have some major spirit with neither absolute power nor absolute knowledge and as it appears limited means or will to communicate with us some form of spiritual big friend do you admit that using god in this context is somewhat unusual am i right in the assumption that it cannot have created the universe as well and that the passages in the bible referring to that or its omnipotence are crap that s what i meant by the riddle it is an important question in the light of what for instance the passage witrh sodom and gomorrha means either there is some connection between the text the fact that it exists and your interpretation of it or it is purely arbitrary further the question is why is has one to carry the burden of biblical texts when one could simply write other books that convey the message better you might answer that one can t becuase some peculiar biblical information might be lost but that holds true of every other book and the question remains why has the bible still a special place can t it be replaced somehow is it ok to bargain the dangerous content of the bible against some other message that is included as well deletion do you see the danger in doing so especially with the metaphers used in the bible i think the danger of doing so is less than either the danger of having a frozen system of laws or having no laws sorry but there are worse systems does not say anything about if one could not have a better system deletion if we read two stories about the importance of helping the poor and in one god is a spirit and in the other god has a body which is more important helping the poor or resolving the contradiction about the corporeal nature of god if we read two stories in the bible one that god commands people to kill children for being idolaters and another where god kills children directly what is more important to resolve the message that children are to be killed or if it has to be done by god and the argument you have given is a fallacy while it may not be important in the context you have given to find out if god is corporeal or not it can be crucial in other questions religious believers resolve contradictions with that they choose one of the possibilities given in an arbitrary way and have the advantage of being able to attribute their decision to some god one cannot resolve questions by the statement do what is good when what is good depends on the question benedikt
alt.atheism	re atheist in article epvk b w w mantis co uk tony lezard tony mantis co uk writes deletion in other words if there were gods they would hardly make sense and it is possible to explain the phenomenon of religion without gods the concept is useless and i don t have to introduce new assumptions in order to show that yes i fully agree with that but is it i don t believe gods exist or i believe no gods exist as mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka pointed out it all hinges on what you take the word believe to mean for me it is a i believe no gods exist and a i don t believe gods exist in other words i think that statements like gods are or somehow interfere with this world are false or meaningless in ontology one can fairly conclude that when a exist is meaningless a does not exist under the pragmatic definition of truth a exists is meaningless makes a exist even logically false a problem with such statements is that one can t disprove a subjective god by definition and there might be cases where a subjective god would even make sense the trouble with most god definitions is that they include some form of objective existence with the consequence of the gods affecting all believers derive from it a right to interfere with the life of others deletion should the faq be clarified to try to pin down this notion of belief can it honestly i don t see the problem benedikt
alt.atheism	re why is sex only allowed in marriage rationality was islamic marriage in mar ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes my case is that everything wrong in the world will end if people start believing in islam and that horrors to mankind are all caused by the lack of belief atheism for the last time bobby lack of belief in your god does not imply atheism just because some moslems aren t moral does not mean they don t believe in a god named allah although their allah may not do the things your allah does if a moslem says he she believes that a god exists he she is a theist though maybe not a true follower of islam murder victims a year caused by atheism poverty massive hate crimes such low respect for the human body distrust among people everything wrong all caused by atheism peace jerk bobby mozumder sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros
alt.atheism	re motto mania mathew writes i prefer mark jason dominus s suggestion that the motto should be changed to mind your own fucking business in this era of aids isn t someone s fucking everyone s interest semi i propose we have no motto recently in the glorious state of maryland the only state whose state song refers to abraham lincoln as a tyrant people have gotten all wound up over the state motto which we inherited from the calverts fatti maschii parole femine which if you read italian says manly deeds womanly words or something to that effect in the state which not so long ago had four women out of seven representatives this represents a problem the official solution was to change the translation so now it means strong deeds gentle words my personal suggestion was changing it to walk softly and carry a big stick c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses good grief the amount of energy being spent on one lousy syllogism says volumes for the true position of reason in this group c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	benediktine metaphysics benedikt rosenau writes with great authority if it is contradictory it cannot exist contradictory is a property of language if i correct this to things defined by contradictory language do not exist i will object to definitions as reality if you then amend it to things described by contradictory language do not exist then we ve come to something which is plainly false failures in description are merely failures in description i m not an objectivist remember c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re gospel dating so then you require the same amount of evidence to believe that i a own a pair of bluejeans and b have superhuman powers well i could use the argument that some here use about nature and claim that you cannot have superhuman powers because you are a human superhuman powers are beyond what a human has and since you are a human any powers you have are not beyond those of a human hence you cannot have superhuman powers sound good to you anyway to the evidence question it depends on the context in this group since you are posting from a american college site i m willing to take it as given that you have a pair of blue jeans and assuming there is some coherency in your position i will take it as a given that you do not have superhuman powers arguments are evidence in themselves in some respects when you say the existence of sic jesus i assume that you mean just the man without any special powers etc yep many will agree that it is very possible that a man called jesus did in fact live in fact i am willing to agree that there was some man named jesus i have no reason to believe that there wasn t ever a man good however most of the claims are extradinary eg virgin birth virgin in the sense of not having any sexual intercourse resurection son of god etc those claims require extra evidence extra evidence why don t we start with evidence at all i cannot see any evidence for the v b which the cynics in this group would ever accept as for the second it is the foundation of the religion anyone who claims to have seen the risen jesus back in the day period is a believer and therefore is discounted by those in this group since these are all ancients anyway one again to choose to dismiss the whole thing the third is as much a metaphysical relationship as anything else even those who agree to it have argued at length over what it means so again i don t see how evidence is possible i thus interpret the extraordinary claims claim as a statement that the speaker will not accept any evidence on the matter c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	a remarkable admission jon livesey writes i m certainly not going to attempt to distinguish between different flavours of christian all loudly claiming to be the one true christian well it s obvious that you don t attempt otherwise you would be aware that they don t all loudly claim to be the one true christian i ve tried to avoid using the phrase is is not christian because of these ownership issues instead i ve tried the phrase nicene christianity in an attempt to identify the vast majority of christianity which has roughly similar viewpoints on the core theological issues the jws do not fall within this group and in fact espouse a position known as arianism which is rejected by all the nicene churches and virtually everyone else as well c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re gospel dating benedikt rosenau writes the argument goes as follows q oid quotes appear in john but not in the almost codified way they were in matthew or luke however they are considered to be similar enough to point to knowledge of q as such and not an entirely different source assuming you are presenting it accurately i don t see how this argument really leads to any firm conclusion the material in john i m not sure exactly what is referred to here but i ll take for granted the similarity to the matt luke q material is different hence one could have almost any relationship between the two right up to john getting it straight from jesus mouth we are talking date of texts here not the age of the authors the usual explanation for the time order of mark matthew and luke does not consider their respective ages it says matthew has read the text of mark and luke that of matthew and probably that of mark the version of the usual theory i have heard has matthew and luke independently relying on mark and q one would think that if luke relied on matthew we wouldn t have the grating inconsistencies in the geneologies for one thing as it is assumed that john knew the content of luke s text the evidence for that is not overwhelming admittedly this is the part that is particularly new to me if it were possible that you could point me to a reference i d be grateful unfortunately i haven t got the info at hand it was i think in the late s or early s and it was possibly as old as ce when they are from about why do they shed doubt on the order on putting john after the rest of the three because it closes up the gap between supposed writing and the existing copy quit a bit the further away from the original the more copies can be written and therefore survival becomes more probable and i don t think a one step removed source is that bad if luke and mark and matthew learned their stories directly from diciples then i really cannot believe in the sort of big transformation from jesus to gospel that some people posit in news reports one generally gets no better information than this and if john is a diciple then there s nothing more to be said that john was a disciple is not generally accepted the style and language together with the theology are usually used as counterargument i m not really impressed with the theology argument but i m really pointing this out as an if and as i pointed out earlier one cannot make these arguments about i peter i see no reason not to accept it as an authentic letter one step and one generation removed is bad even in our times compare that to reports of similar events in our century in almost illiterate societies the best analogy would be reporters talking to the participants which is not so bad in other words one does not know what the original of mark did look like and arguments based on mark are pretty weak but the statement of divinity is not in that section and in any case it s agreed that the most important epistles predate mark c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re yeah right benedikt rosenau writes and what about that revelation thing charley if you re talking about this intellectual engagement of revelation well it s obviously a risk one takes many people say that the concept of metaphysical and religious knowledge is contradictive i m not an objectivist so i m not particularly impressed with problems of conceptualization the problem in this case is at least as bad as that of trying to explain quantum mechanics and relativity in the terms of ordinary experience one can get some rough understanding but the language is from the perspective of ordinary phenomena inconsistent and from the perspective of what s being described rather inexact to be charitable an analogous situation supposedly obtains in metaphysics the problem is that the better descriptive language is not available and in case it holds reliable information can you show how you establish that this word reliable is essentially meaningless in the context unless you can show how reliability can be determined c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re radical agnostic not in article apr cnsvax uwec edu nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye wrote reply to zazen austin ibm com e h welbon there is no means that i can possibly think of to prove beyond doubt that a god does not exist but if anyone has one by all means tell me what it is therefore lacking this ability of absolute proof being an atheist becomes an act of faith in and of itself and this i cannot accept i accept nothing on blind faith invisible pink flying unicorns need i say more i harbor no beliefs at all there is no good evidence for god existing or not some folks call this agnosticism it does not suffer from blind faith at all i think of it as don t worry be happy for many atheists the lack of belief in gods is secondary to an epistemological consideration what do we accept as a reliable way of knowing there are no known valid logical arguments for the existence of gods nor is there any empirical evidence that they exist most philosophers and theologians agree that the idea of a god is one that must be accepted on faith faith is belief without a sound logical basis or empirical evidence it is a reliable way of knowing could you expand on your definition of knowing it seems a bit monolithic here but i m not sure that you intend that don t we need for example to distinguish between knowing plus equals or apples plus apples equals apples the french knowing that jerry lewis is an auteur and what it means to say we know what socrates said this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell i like this epigraph perhaps the issue is learning which if any absurdities merit further exploration gene
alt.atheism	re political atheists bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes my personal objection is that i find capital punishment to be cruel and unusual punishment under all circumstances it can be painless so it isn t cruel and it has occurred frequently since the dawn of time so it is hardly unusual i don t take issue with the numbers a single innocent life taken is one too many but innocents die due to many causes why have you singled out accidental or false execution as the one to take issue with keith
alt.atheism	re yeah right in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes for several years i ve periodically asked charley wingate to explain this mythical alternative to rationality which he propounds so enthusiastically when he pops up every few months his reluctance to explain indicates to me that it s not so hot i ve said enough times that there is no alternative that should think you might have caught on by now and there is no alternative but the point is rationality isn t an alternative either the problems of metaphysical and religious knowledge are unsolvable or i should say humans cannot solve them if there is truly no alternative then you have no basis whatsoever for your claim the usual line here which you call a prejudgment of atheism and dispute is that reason is all we have here you admit that you have no alternative no possible basis for the claim that there is anything other than reason or that reason is inapplicable in religious knowledge except possibly that reason conflicts with religious knowledge this sounds very much like i can t provide a rational defense for my belief but prefer to discard rationality rather than accept that it may be false i hope it makes you happy but your repeated and unfounded assertions to this effect don t advance your cause jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re yeah right in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes benedikt rosenau writes and what about that revelation thing charley if you re talking about this intellectual engagement of revelation well it s obviously a risk one takes ah now here is the core question let me suggest a scenario we will grant that a god exists and uses revelation to communicate with humans said revelation taking the form paraphrased from your own words this infinitely powerful deity grabs some poor schmuck makes him take dictation and then hides away for a few hundred years now there exists a human who has not personally experienced a revelation this person observes that not only do these revelations seem to contain elements that contradict rather strongly aspects of the observed world which is all this person has ever seen but there are many mutually contradictory claims of revelation now based on this can this person be blamed for concluding absent a personal revelation of their own that there is almost certainly nothing to this revelation thing i m not an objectivist so i m not particularly impressed with problems of conceptualization the problem in this case is at least as bad as that of trying to explain quantum mechanics and relativity in the terms of ordinary experience one can get some rough understanding but the language is from the perspective of ordinary phenomena inconsistent and from the perspective of what s being described rather inexact to be charitable an analogous situation supposedly obtains in metaphysics the problem is that the better descriptive language is not available absent this better language and absent observations in support of the claims of revelation can one be blamed for doubting the whole thing here is what i am driving at i have thought a long time about this i have come to the honest conclusion that if there is a deity it is nothing like the ones proposed by any religion that i am familiar with now if there does happen to be say a christian god will i be held accountable for such an honest mistake sincerely ray ingles ingles engin umich edu the meek can have the earth the rest of us are going to the stars robert a heinlein
alt.atheism	re ancient islamic rituals in pkqe inn n lynx unm edu cfaehl vesta unm edu chris faehl writes in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes deleted to get to the point therefore in a nutshell my opinion is that pre marital sex makes the likelihood of extra marital sex more probable furthermore in my opinion extra marital sex helps break down partnerships and leads to greater divorce rates this in turn in my opinion creates trauma and a less stable environment for children who are then in my opinion more likely to grow up with psychological problems such as depression etc and thus sex outside of marriage is in the long run harmful to society i think that you are drawing links where there are none having sex before marriage has nothing to do with adultery once committed into marriage the issue as i see it is more of how committed you are to not foisting pain on your spouse and how confident you are about yourself in addition what someone does within their marriage is their own business not mine and not yours i have witnessed strong relationships that incorporate extra marital sex i would agree with your assertion about children children should not be witness to such confusing relationships if adultery is stressful to adults which i assume it in general is how can we expect children to understand it where is the evidence for my opinions at the moment there are just generalities i can cite for example i read that in the th century the percentage of youth and people in general who suffer from depression has been steadily climbing in western societies probably what i was reading referred particularly to the usa similarly one can detect a trend towards greater occurrence of sex outside of marriage in this century in western societies particularly with the sexual revolution of the s but even before that i think otherwise the sexual revolution of the s would not have been possible particularly with the gradual weakening of christianity and consequently christian moral teachings against sex outside of marriage i propose that these two trends greater level of general depression in society and other psychological problems and greater sexual promiscuity are linked with the latter being a prime cause of the former i cannot provide any evidence beyond this at this stage but the whole thesis seems very reasonable to me and i request that people ponder upon it why is it more reasonable than the trend towards obesity and the trend towards depression you can t just pick your two favorite trends notice a correlation in them and make a sweeping statement of generality i mean you can and people have but that does not mean that it is a valid or reasonable thesis at best it s a gross oversimplification of the push pull factors people experience my argument is mainly a proposal of what i think is a plausible argument against extra marital sex one which i personally believe has some truth my main purpose for posting it here is to show that a plausible argument can be made against extra marital sex at this stage i am not saying that this particular viewpoint is proven or anything like that just that it is plausible to try to convince you all of this particular point of view i would probably have to do a lot of work researching what has been done in this field etc in order to gather further evidence which i simply do not have time to do now also note that i said that i think extra marital sex is a prime cause in my opinion of the generally greater levels of psychological problems especially depression in western societies i am not saying it is the prime cause or the only cause just a prime cause i e one of the significant contributions to this trend i think when you say you think my view is simplistic you have forgotten this i admit that there are probably other factors but i do think that extra marital sex and imo subsequent destabilization of the family is a significant factor in the rise in psychological problems like depression in western society this century fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re ancient islamic rituals in ednclark kraken ednclark kraken itc gu edu au jeffrey clark writes cfaehl vesta unm edu chris faehl writes why is it more reasonable than the trend towards obesity and the trend towards depression you can t just pick your two favorite trends notice a correlation in them and make a sweeping statement of generality i mean you can and people have but that does not mean that it is a valid or reasonable thesis at best it s a gross oversimplification of the push pull factors people experience basically the social interactions of all the changing factors in our society are far too complicated for us to control we just have to hold on to the panic handles and hope that we are heading for a soft landing but one things for sure depression and the destruction of the nuclear family is not due solely to sex out of marriage note that i never said that depression and the destruction of the nuclear family is due solely to extra marital sex i specifically said that it was a prime cause of this not the prime cause or the only cause of this i recognize that there are probably other factors too but i think that extra marital sex and subsequent destabilization of the family is probably a significant factor to the rise in psychological problems including depression in the west in the th century fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re why is sex only allowed in marriage rationality was islamic marriage in apr proxima alt za lucio proxima alt za lucio de re writes darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes my point of view is that the argument all sexism is bad just simply does not hold let me give you an example how about permitting a woman to temporarily leave her job due to pregnancy should that be allowed it happens to be sexist as it gives a particular right only to women nevertheless despite the fact that it is sexist i completely support such a law because i think it is just fred you re exasperating sexism like racialism is a form of discrimination using obvious physical or cultural differences to deny one portion of the population the same rights as another in this context your example above holds no water whatsoever there s no discrimination in denying men maternity leave in fact i m quite convinced that were anyone to experiment with male pregnancy it would be possible for such a future father to take leave on medical grounds okay i argued this thoroughly about weeks ago men and women are different physically physiologically and psychologically much recent evidence for this statement is present in the book brainsex by anne moir and david jessel i recommend you find a copy and read it their book is an overview of recent scientific research on this topic and is well referenced now if women and men are different in some ways the law can only adequately take into account their needs in these areas where they are different by also taking into account the ways in which men and women are different maternity leave is an example of this it takes into account that women get pregnant it does not give women the same rules it would give to men because to treat women like it treats men in this instance would be unjust this is just simply an obvious example of where men and women are intrinsically different now people make the naive argument that sexism oppression however maternity leave is sexist because men do not get pregnant men do not have the same access to leave that women do not to the same extent or degree and therefore it is sexist no matter however much a man wants to get pregnant and have maternity leave he never can and therefore the law is sexist no man can have access to maternity leave no matter how hard he tries to get pregnant i hope this is clear maternity leave is an example where a sexist law is just because the sexism here just reflects the sexism of nature in making men and women different there are many other differences between men and women which are far more subtle than pregnancy and to find out more of these i recommend you have a look at the book brainsex your point that perhaps some day men can also be pregnant is fallacious if men can one day become pregnant it will be by having biologically become women to have a womb and the other factors required for pregnancy is usually wrapped up in the definition of what a woman is so your argument when it is examined is seen to be fallacious you are saying that men can have the sexist maternity leave privilege that women can have if they also become women which actually just supports my statement that maternity leave is sexist the discrimination comes in when a woman is denied opportunities because of her legally determined sexual inferiorities as i understand most religious sexual discrimination and i doubt that islam is exceptional the female is not allowed into the priestly caste and in general is subjugated so that she has no aspirations to rights which as an equal human she ought to be entitled to there is no official priesthood in islam much of this function is taken by islamic scholars there are female islamic scholars and female islamic scholars have always existed in islam an example from early islamic history is the prophet s widow aisha who was recognized in her time and is recognized in our time as an islamic scholar no matter how sweetly you coat it part of the role of religions seems historically to have served the function of oppressing the female whether by forcing her to procreate to the extent where there is no opportunity for self improvement or by denying her access to the same facilities the males are offered you have no evidence for your blanket statement about all religions and i dispute it i could go on and on about women in islam etc but i recently reposted something here under the heading islam and women if it is still at your news site i suggest you read it it is reposted from soc religion islam so if it has disappeared from alt atheism it still might be in soc religion islam i forgot what its original title was though i will email it to you if you like the roman catholic church is the most blatant of the culprit because they actually istitutionalised a celibate clergy but the other religious are no different let a woman attempt to escape her role as child bearer and the wrath of god descends on her your statement that other religions are no different is i think a statement based simply on lack of knowledge about religions other than christianity and perhaps judaism i ll accept your affirmation that islam grants women the same rights as men when you can show me that any muslim woman can aspire to the same position as say khomeini and there are no artificial religious or social obstacles on her path to achieve this aisha who i mentioned earlier was not only an islamic scholar but also was at one stage a military leader show me the equivalent of hillary rhodam clinton within islam and i may consider discussing the issue with you the prophet s first wife who died just before the hijra the prophet s journey from mecca to medina was a successful businesswoman lucio you cannot make a strong case for your viewpoint when your viewpoint is based on ignorance about world religions fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re ancient islamic rituals in ba c i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes there has been some discussion on the pros and cons about sex outside of marriage i personally think that part of the value of having lasting partnerships between men and women is that this helps to provide a stable and secure environment for children to grow up in deletion as an addition to chris faehl s post what about homosexuals well from an islamic viewpoint homosexuality is not the norm for society i cannot really say much about the islamic viewpoint on homosexuality as it is not something i have done much research on fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re benediktine metaphysics in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes benedikt rosenau writes with great authority if it is contradictory it cannot exist contradictory is a property of language if i correct this to things defined by contradictory language do not exist i will object to definitions as reality if you then amend it to things described by contradictory language do not exist then we ve come to something which is plainly false failures in description are merely failures in description how about this description an object that is at one time both a euclidean square and a euclidean circle i hold that no object satisfying this description could exist the description is inconsistent and hence describes an object that could not exist now suppose someone pointed to a bicycle and said that object is at one time both a euclidean square and a euclidean circle this does not mean that the bicycle does not exist it measn that the description was incorrectly applied the atheist says the descriptions of god that i have been presented with are contradictory and hence describe something that cannot exist now your position so far as i can gather is that god exists but the descriptions atheists have been presented with are simply bad descriptions of it this is roughly analogous to someone who has never seen a bicycle and when they ask for a description from people who claim to have seen one are told that it is a euclidean circle square can they be blamed for doubting rather strongly that this bicycle exists at all i m not an objectivist remember no kidding sincerely ray ingles ingles engin umich edu the meek can have the earth the rest of us are going to the stars robert a heinlein
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article apr dcs warwick ac uk simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale writes for the guy who said he s just arrived and asked whether bobby s for real you betcha welcome to alt atheism and rest assured that it gets worse i have a few pearls of wisdom from bobby which i reproduce below is anyone keith keeping a big file of such stuff sorry i was but i somehow have misplaced my diskette from the last couple of months or so however thanks to the efforts of bobby it is being replenished rather quickly here is a recent favorite satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses good grief in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes the amount of energy being spent on one lousy syllogism says volumes for the true position of reason in this group i agree we spend too much energy on the nonexistance of god satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	evo homosexuality was re princeton etc sorry bill i had to clear this up there may be good evolutionary arguments against homosexuality but these don t qualify in article c vwn jf darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes c wainwright eczcaw mips nott ac uk wrote deletions it would seem odd if homosexuality had any evolutionary function deletions so every time a man has sex with a woman they intend to produce children hmm no wonder the world is overpopulated obviously you keep to the monty python song every sperm is sacred and if as you say it has a purpose as a means to limit population growth then it is by your own arguement natural consider the context i m talking about an evolutionary function one of the most basic requirements of evolution is that members of a species procreate those who don t have no purpose in that context oh i guess all those social insects e g ants bees etc which have one breeding queen and a whole passel of sterile workers are on the way out huh these days is just ain t true people can decide whether or not to have children and when soon they will be able to choose it s sex c but that s another arguement so it s more of a lifestyle decision again by your arguement since homosexuals can not or choose not to reproduce they must be akin to people who decide to have sex but not children both are as unnatural as each other yet another non sequitur sex is an evolutionary function that exists for procreation that it is also recreation is incidental that homosexuals don t procreate means that sex is only recreation and nothing more they serve no evolutionary purpose i refer you to the bonobos a species of primate as closeley related to humans as chimpanzees that is very closely they have sex all the time homosexual as well as heterosexual when the group finds food they have sex before the go to sleep at night they have sex after they escape from or fight off prdators they have sex sex serves a very important social function above and beyond reproduction in this species a species closely related to humans there is some indication that sex performs a social function in humans as well but even if not this shows that such a function is not impossible sincerely ray ingles ingles engin umich edu the meek can have the earth the rest of us are going to the stars robert a heinlein
alt.atheism	vonnegut atheism yesterday i got the chance to hear kurt vonnegut speak at the university of new hampshire vonnegut succeeded isaac asimov as the honorary head of the american humanist association vonnegut is an atheist and so was asimov before asimov s funeral vonnegut stood up and said about asimov he s in heaven now which ignited uproarious laughter in the room from the people he was speaking to around the time of the funeral it s the funniest thing i could have possibly said to a room full of humanists vonnegut said at yesterday s lecture if vonnegut comes to speak at your university i highly recommend going to see him even if you ve never read any of his novels in my opinion he s the greatest living humorist greatest living humanist humorist as well peace dana
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes i should clarify what muslims usually mean when they say muslim in general anyone who calls themselves a muslim and does not do or outwardly profess something in clear contradiction with the essential teachings of islam is considered to be a muslim thus one who might do things contrary to islam through ignorance for example does not suddenly not become a muslim if one knowingly transgresses islamic teachings and essential principles though then one does leave islam you and mr bobby really need to sit down and decide what exactly islam is before posting here according to zlumber one is not a muslim when one is doing evil a muslin can do no evil according to him one who does evil is suffering from temporary athiesm now would the members who claim to be muslims get their stories straight satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	re request for support in article apr sei cmu edu dpw sei cmu edu david wood writes if you must respond to one of his articles include within it something similar to the following please answer the questions posed to you in the charley challenges agreed satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	re bill conner in article c y mlr darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes could you explain what any of this pertains to is this a position statement on something or typing practice and why are you using my name do you think this relates to anything i ve said and if so what bill could you explain what any of the above pertains to is this a position statement on something or typing practice satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts in article jvigneau apr cs ulowell edu jvigneau cs ulowell edu joe vigneau writes if anything the bsa has taught me i don t know tolerance or something before i met this guy i thought all gays were faries so the bsa has taught me to be an antibigot i could give much the same testimonial about my experience as a scout back in the s the issue wasn t gays but the principles were the same thanks for a well put testimonial stan krieger and his kind who think this discussion doesn t belong here and his intolerance is the only acceptable position in scouting should take notice the bsa has been hijacked by the religious right but some of the core values have survived in spite of the leadership and some scouts and former scouts haven t given up seeing a testimonial like this reminds me that scouting is still worth fighting for on a cautionary note you must realize that if your experience with this camp leader was in the bsa you may be putting him at risk by publicizing it word could leak out to the bsa gestapo bill mayne
alt.atheism	re soc motss et al princeton axes matching funds for boy scouts c wainwright eczcaw mips nott ac uk wrote i jim i always thought that homophobe was only a word used at act up rallies i didn t beleive real people used it let s see if we agree on the term s definition a homophobe is one who actively and militantly attacks homosexuals because he is actually a latent homosexual who uses his hostility to conceal his true orientation since everyone who disapproves of or condemns homosexuality is a homophobe your implication is clear it must necessarily follow that all men are latent homosexuals or bisexual at the very least crap crap crap crap crap a definition of any type of phobe comes from phobia an irrational fear of hence a homophobe not only in act up meetings the word is apparently in general use now or perhaps it isn t in the bible wouldst thou prefer if i were to communicate with thou in bilespeak does an arachnophobe have an irrational fear of being a spider does an agoraphobe have an irrational fear of being a wide open space do you understand english obviously someone who has phobia will react to it they will do their best to avoid it and if that is not possible they will either strike out or run away or do gaybashings occur because of natural processes people who definately have homophobia will either run away from gay people or cause them or themselves violence isn t that what i said what are you taking issue with here your remarks are merely parenthetical to mine and add nothing useful it would seem odd if homosexuality had any evolutionary function other than limiting population growth since evolution only occurs when the members of one generation pass along their traits to subsequent generations homosexuality is an evolutionary deadend if i take your usage of the term homophobe in the sense you seem to intend then all men are really homosexual and evolution of our species at least is going nowhere so every time a man has sex with a woman they intend to produce children hmm no wonder the world is overpopulated obviously you keep to the monty python song every sperm is sacred and if as you say it has a purpose as a means to limit population growth then it is by your own arguement natural consider the context i m talking about an evolutionary function one of the most basic requirements of evolution is that members of a species procreate those who don t have no purpose in that context another point is that if the offspring of each generation is to survive the participation of both parents is necessary a family must exist since homosexuals do not reproduce they cannot constitute a family since the majority of humankind is part of a family homosexuality is an evolutionary abberation contrary to nature if you will well if that is true by your own arguements homosexuals would have vanished years ago due to non procreation also the parent from single parent families should put the babies out in the cold now cos they must by your arguement die by your argument homosexuality is genetically determined as to your second point you prove again that you have no idea what context means i am talking about evolution the preservation of the species the fundamental premise of the whole process but it gets worse since the overwhelming majority of people actually prefer a heterosexual relationship homosexuality is a social abberation as well the homosexual eschews the biological imperative to reproduce and then the social imperative to form and participate in the most fundamental social element the family but wait there s more read the above i expect you to have at least ten children by now with the family growing these days sex is less to do with procreation admittedly without it there would be no one but more to do with pleasure in pre pill and pre condom days if you had sex there was the chance of producing children these days is just ain t true people can decide whether or not to have children and when soon they will be able to choose it s sex c but that s another arguement so it s more of a lifestyle decision again by your arguement since homosexuals can not or choose not to reproduce they must be akin to people who decide to have sex but not children both are as unnatural as each other yet another non sequitur sex is an evolutionary function that exists for procreation that it is also recreation is incidental that homosexuals don t procreate means that sex is only recreation and nothing more they serve no evolutionary purpose since homosexuals have come out the closet and have convinced some policy makers that they have civil rights they are now claiming that their sexuality is a preference a life style an orientation a choice that should be protected by law now if homosexuality is a mere choice and if it is both contrary to nature and anti social then it is a perverse choice they have even less credibility than before they became prominent people are people are people who are you to tell anyone else how to live their life are you god tm if so fancy a date here s pretty obvious dodge do you really think you ve said anything or do you just feel obligated to respond to every statement i am not telling anyone anything i am demonstrating that there are arguments against the practice of homosexuality providing it s a merely an alternate lifestlye that are not homophobic that one can reasonably call it perverse in a context even a atheist can understand i realize of course that this comes dangerously close to establishing a value and that atheists are compelled to object on that basis but if you are to be consistent you have no case in this regard to characterize any opposition to homosexuality as homophobic is to ignore some very compelling arguments against the legitimization of the homosexual life style but since the charge is only intended to intimidate it s really just demogoguery and not to be taken seriously fact is jim there are far more persuasive arguments for suppressing homosexuality than those given but consider this a start again crap all your arguments are based on outdated ideals likewise the bible would any honest christian condemn the ten generations spawned by a bastard to eternal damnation or someone who crushes his penis either accidently or not both are in deuteronomy i m sure your comment pertains to something but you ve disguised it so well i can t see what where did i mention ideals out dated or otherwise your arguments are very reactionary do you have anything at all to contribute as to why homosexuals should be excluded from participation in scouting the reasons are the same as those used to restrict them from teaching by their own logic homosexuals are deviates social and biological since any adult is a role model for a child it is incumbent on the parent to ensure that the child be isolated from those who would do the child harm in this case harm means primarily social though that could be extended easily enough you show me anyone who has sex in a way that everyone would describe as normal and will take of my hat puma baseball cap to you one man s meat is another man s poison what has this got to do with anything would you pick a single point that you find offensive and explain your objections i would really like to believe that you can discuss this issue intelligibly bill
alt.atheism	fluids vs liquids west next wam umd edu brian west writes deleted a similar analogy can be made with glass for those of you who don t know glass is a liquid go ask your science teacher and does flow deleted if your science teacher tells you glass is a liquid try to get a different science teacher b glass is a supercooled fluid it is not a liquid except at very high temperatures the definition of liquid includes readily takes the form of its container let s try to be more accurate here we don t want people to think we re creationists now do we uucp uunet tektronix sail mikec or m cranford uunet tektronix sail labs tek com mikec principal troll arpa mikec sail labs tek com relay cs net resident skeptic csnet mikec sail labs tek com teklabs tektronix
alt.atheism	re gospel dating in article c vyfu jj darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes keith m ryan kmr po cwru edu wrote wild and fanciful claims require greater evidence if you state that one of the books in your room is blue i certainly do not need as much evidence to believe than if you were to claim that there is a two headed leapard in your bed and i don t mean a male lover in a leotard keith if the issue is what is truth then the consequences of whatever proposition argued is irrelevent if the issue is what are the consequences if such and such is true then truth is irrelevent which is it to be i disagree every proposition needs a certain amount of evidence and support before one can believe it there are a miriad of factors for each individual as we are all different we quite obviously require different levels of evidence as one pointed out one s history is important while in fussr one may not believe a comrade who states that he owns five pairs of blue jeans one would need more evidence than if one lived in the united states the only time such a statement here would raise an eyebrow in the us is if the individual always wear business suits etc the degree of the effect upon the world and the strength of the claim also determine the amount of evidence necessary when determining the level of evidence one needs it is most certainly relevent what the consequences of the proposition are if the consequences of a proposition is irrelvent please explain why one would not accept the electro magnetic force of attraction between two charged particles is inversely proportional to the cube of their distance apart remember if the consequences of the law are not relevent then we can not use experimental evidence as a disproof if one of the consequences of the law is an incongruency between the law and the state of affairs or an incongruency between this law and any other natural law they are irrelevent when theorizing about the truth of the law given that any consequences of a proposition is irrelvent including the consequence of self contradiction or contradiction with the state of affiars how are we ever able to judge what is true or not let alone find the truth by the way what is truth please define before inserting it in the conversation please explain what truth or truth is i do think that anything is ever known for certain even if there is a truth we could never possibly know if it were i find the concept to be meaningless satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	re is morality constant was re biblical rape in article c w pv jxd darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes there are a couple of things about your post and others in this thread that are a little confusing an atheist is one for whom all things can be understood as processes of nature exclusively there is no need for any recourse to divnity to describe or explain anything there is no purpose or direction for any event beyond those required by physics chemistry biology etc everything is random nothing is determnined this posts contains too many fallacies to respond too the abolishment of divinity requires the elimination of freewill you have not shown this you have not even attempted to however the existance of an omniscience being does eliminate freewill in mortals posted over five months ago no one has been able to refute it nor give any reasonable reasons against it satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	re gospel dating in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes deletion i cannot see any evidence for the v b which the cynics in this group would ever accept as for the second it is the foundation of the religion anyone who claims to have seen the risen jesus back in the day period is a believer and therefore is discounted by those in this group since these are all ancients anyway one again to choose to dismiss the whole thing the third is as much a metaphysical relationship as anything else even those who agree to it have argued at length over what it means so again i don t see how evidence is possible no cookies charlie the claims that jesus have been seen are discredited as extraordinary claims that don t match their evidence in this case it is for one that the gospels cannot even agree if it was jesus who has been seen further there are zillions of other spook stories and one would hardly consider others even in a religious context to be some evidence of a resurrection there have been more elaborate arguments made but it looks as if they have not passed your post filtering i thus interpret the extraordinary claims claim as a statement that the speaker will not accept any evidence on the matter it is no evidence in the strict meaning if there was actual evidence it would probably be part of it but the says nothing about the claims charlie i have seen invisible pink unicorns by your standards we have evidence for ipus now benedikt
alt.atheism	re contradictions in article c oys clj austin ibm com yoder austin ibm com stuart r yoder writes then what would it have to do with in the universe you theists cannot understand that inside the universe and outside the universe are two different places put god outside the universe and you subtract from it the ability to interact with the inside of the universe put it inside the universe and you impose the rules of physics on it god is outside the universe things outside the universe do not have the ability to interact with the inside of the universe therefore god cannot interact inside the universe has no basis whatsoever you seem to have positive knowledge about this is a corrallary of the negation of would contridict although we do not have a complete model of the physical rules governing the inside of the universe we expect that there are no contradictory events likely to destroy the fabric of modern physics on the other hand your notion of an omnipotent omniscient and infinitely benevolent god is not subject to physical laws you attempt to explain this away by describing it as being outside of them beyond measurement to me beyond measurement means it can have no measurable effect on reality so it cannot interact ergo your god is irrelevant god is beyond measure beyond measurement means it can have no measurable effect on reality therefore god cannot have a measurable effect on reality has no basis whatsoever is a corrallary of the negation of would contradict satan and the angels do not have freewill they do what god tells them to do s n mozumder snm ultb isc rit edu
alt.atheism	ontology was benediktine metaphysics in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes if it is contradictory it cannot exist contradictory is a property of language if i correct this to things defined by contradictory language do not exist no need to correct it it stands as it is said i will object to definitions as reality if you then amend it to things described by contradictory language do not exist then we ve come to something which is plainly false failures in description are merely failures in description you miss the point entirely things defined by contradictory language do not exist though something existing might be meant conclusions drawn from the description are wrong unless there is the possibility to find the described and draw conclusions from direct knowledge of the described then another possibility is to drop the contradictory part but that implies that one can trust the concept as presented and that one has not got to doubt the source of it as well i m not an objectivist remember neither am i but either things are directly sensed which includes some form of modelling by the way or they are used in modelling using something contradictive in modelling is not approved of wonder why we remain with the question if something contradictory can be sensed as contradictory an important point is that either one manages to resolve the contradictions or one is forced not to use or to refer to the contradictory part in drawing conclusions or one will fall in the garbage in garbage out trap benedikt
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie references deleted to move this to a new thread in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article phkf inn p dsi dsinc com perry dsinc com jim perry writes rushdie is however as i understand a muslim the fact that he s a british citizen does not preclude his being muslim rushdie was an atheist to use local terminology not to put words in his mouth at the time of writing tsv and at the time of the fatwa in february well if he was born muslim i am fairly certain he was then he is muslim until he explicitly renounces islam so far as i know he has never explicitly renounced islam though he may have been in extreme doubt about the existence of god being muslim is a legal as well as intellectual issue according to islam to put it as simply as possible i am not a muslim i do not accept the charge of apostacy because i have never in my adult life affirmed any belief and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from the islam i know states clearly that there can be no coercion in matters of religion the many muslims i respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth and that a person who freely chose not to be a muslim could therefore be put to death salman rushdie in good faith god satan paradise and hell all vanished one day in my fifteenth year when i quite abruptly lost my faith and afterwards to prove my new found atheism i bought myself a rather tasteless ham sandwich and so partook for the first time of the forbidden flesh of the swine no thunderbolt arrived to strike me down from that day to this i have thought of myself as a wholly seculat person salman rushdie in god we trust i think the rushdie affair has discredited islam more in my eyes than khomeini i know there are fanatics and fringe elements in all religions but even apparently moderate muslims have participated or refused to distance themselves from the witch hunt against rushdie yes i think this is true but there khomenei s motivations are quite irrelevant to the issue the fact of the matter is that rushdie made false statements fiction i know but where is the line between fact and fiction about the life of mohammad only a functional illiterate with absolutely no conception of the nature of the novel could think such a thing i ll accept it reluctantly from mobs in pakistan but not from you what is presented in the fictional dream of a demented character cannot by the wildest stretch of the imagination be considered a reflection on the actual mohammad what s worse the novel doesn t present the mahound mohammed character in any worse light than secular histories of islam in particular there is no lewd misrepresentation of his life or that of his wives that is why few people rush to his defense he s considered an absolute fool for his writings in the satanic verses don t hold back he s considered an apostate and a blasphemer however it s not for his writing in the satanic verses but for what people have accepted as a propagandistic version of what is contained in that book i have yet to find one single muslim who has convinced me that they have read the book some have initially claimed to have done so but none has shown more knowledge of the book than a superficial newsweek story might impart and all have made factual misstatements about events in the book if you wish to understand the reasons behind this as well has the origin of the concept of the satanic verses see the penguin paperback by rafiq zakariyah called mohammad and the quran i ll keep an eye out for it i have a counter proposal i suggest that you see the viking hardcover by salman rushdie called the satanic verses perhaps then you ll understand jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re a visit from the jehovah s witnesses in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article c twso m hq ileaf com mukesh hq ileaf com mukesh prasad writes in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article p v ainn e matt ksu ksu edu strat matt ksu ksu edu steve davis writes bskendig netcom com brian kendig writes the earth is evil because satan rules over it this is a new one to me i guess it s been a while since a witness bothered with me are they implying that satan is omniscient you might try tricking them into saying that satan is all knowing and then use that statement to show them how their beliefs are self contradictary no satan is not omniscient but he does hold dominion over the earth according to christian theology note not to be confused with jw s theology what are the standard theologies on who what created satan and why orthodox christian theology states that god created lucifer satan along with the other angels presumably because he wanted beings to celebrate glorify existence and life and thereby god along with him actually the whys and wherefores of god s motivations for creating the angels are not a big issue within christian theology but god created lucifer with a perfect nature and gave him along with the other angels free moral will lucifer was a high angel perhaps the highest with great authority it seems that his greatness caused him to begin to take pride in himself and desire to be equal to or greater than god he forgot his place as a created being he exalted himself above god and thereby evil and sin entered creation actually the story goes that lucifer refused to bow before man as god commanded him to lucifer was devoted to god oh yeah there is nothing in genesis that says the snake was anything more than a snake well a talking one had legs at the time too i don t think pointing out contradictions in stories is the best way to show the error in theology if they think a supernatural entity kicked the first humans out of paradise because they bit into a fruit that gave them special powers well they might not respond well to reason and logic brian
alt.atheism	re ancient islamic rituals in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes there has been some discussion on the pros and cons about sex outside of marriage where is the evidence for my opinions at the moment there are just generalities i can cite for example i read that in the th century the percentage of youth and people in general who suffer from depression has been steadily climbing in western societies probably what i was reading referred particularly to the usa similarly one can detect a trend towards greater occurrence of sex outside of marriage in this century in western societies particularly with the sexual revolution of the s but even before that i think otherwise the sexual revolution of the s would not have been possible particularly with the gradual weakening of christianity and consequently christian moral teachings against sex outside of marriage i propose that these two trends greater level of general depression in society and other psychological problems and greater sexual promiscuity are linked with the latter being a prime cause of the former i cannot provide any evidence beyond this at this stage but the whole thesis seems very reasonable to me and i request that people ponder upon it fred rice a muslim giving his point of view darice yoyo cc monash edu au i think this is a big leap sex depression one example is myself where no sex depression but seriously promiscuity is on a decline depression is not and it might be more reasonable to say depression promiscuity i think depression is more likely to come from emotional problems relationships family job friends and promiscuity is used as an escape since i see marriage as a civil and religious bond rather than an emotional bond i don t see a problem with sex before not outside of marriage so long as you have the same commitment and devotion as what is expected from a married couple of course this is just my opinion brian
alt.atheism	re yeah right in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes and what about that revelation thing charley if you re talking about this intellectual engagement of revelation well it s obviously a risk one takes i see it is not rational but it is intellectual does madness qualify as intellectual engagement too many people say that the concept of metaphysical and religious knowledge is contradictive i m not an objectivist so i m not particularly impressed with problems of conceptualization the problem in this case is at least as bad as that of trying to explain quantum mechanics and relativity in the terms of ordinary experience one can get some rough understanding but the language is from the perspective of ordinary phenomena inconsistent and from the perspective of what s being described rather inexact to be charitable exactly why science uses mathematics qm representation in natural language is not supposed to replace the elaborate representation in mathematical terminology nor is it supposed to be the truth as opposed to the representation of gods or religions in ordinary language admittedly not every religion says so but a fancy side effect of their inept representations are the eternal hassles between religions and qm allows for making experiments that will lead to results that will be agreed upon as being similar show me something similar in religion an analogous situation supposedly obtains in metaphysics the problem is that the better descriptive language is not available with the effect that the models presented are useless and one can argue that the other way around namely that the only reason metaphysics still flourish is because it makes no statements that can be verified or falsified showing that it is bogus and in case it holds reliable information can you show how you establish that this word reliable is essentially meaningless in the context unless you can show how reliability can be determined haven t you read the many posts about what reliability is and how it can be acheived respectively determined benedikt
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes date sat apr gmt from fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au in p ivt cfj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes should we british go around blowing up skyscrapers next i don t know if you are doing so but it seems you are implying that the person accused of blowing up the wtc in ny actually did it and that islamic teachings have something to do with blowing up the wtc wtc world trade centre which was the building that was blown up i think okay to make some comments the person has only been accused innocent until proven guilty remember secondly there seem to be some holes in his accusation that i read about for instance if they guy used that particular van to blow up the building and then to go back and claim his deposit back afterwards he must be incredibly stupid perhaps salamen was one of those uneducated muslims we hear so much about nevertheless he was apparently smart enough to put together a very sophisticated bomb it doesn t seem to fit together somehow actually salameh was not the only person involved the other fellow was a chemical engineer working for allied signal who had specifically studied explosive devices in school believe it or not we actually allow radical muslim types to study things like this in our universities so much for the price of freedom from what i read the other fellow told salameh how to put it together over the phone the bomb was supposedly some sort of sophisticated type so to put a i assume complicated sophisticated bomb together from instructions over the phone one must need some brains i would expect despite this there have already been many attacks and threats against mosques and muslims in the united states as a consequence of his accusation i have read o k now please tell us where this is happening i live in the u s and i have heard very little about these mosque attacks there are many mosques in houston texas and i would like to know what is going on so i can verify this or is the great jewish media conspiracy keeping us from knowing about this in the u s we heard about the mosque attacks during the desert storm venture so why is it so quiet now maybe it is localized to new jersey i read this in an article in the australian muslim times the newspaper weekly of the australian muslim community if this is true perhaps one of the muslims based in north america if they see this posting can elaborate islamic teachings teach against harming the innocent in the qur an it explicitly teaches against harming innocents even in times of war the blowing up of the wtc and harming innocents is therefore in blatant contradiction to islamic teachings this means absolutely nothing plenty of people commit violence while following what they think are valid religious principles i have seen people post many things here from the koran which could be misinterpreted if that is the explanation you wish to use by an uneducated muslim to allow them to harm idolators and unbelievers the first thing every muslim says is that no muslim could have done that because islam teaches against harming innocents and we are supposed to take you word that it never happens what do you think is the consequence does allah strike them down before the alleged violence occurs of course not muslims commit the violent act and then everyone hides behind verses in the koran we re pretty hip to that trick and i even doubt that it will come up in the trials my defense is that i am muslim and islam teaches me not to harm the innocent therefore the people who were killed must not have been innocent sure we set off the bomb your honor but you must remember sir i am a muslim allah is all powerful allah would not have allowed this are you insulting my religion great defense eh just admit that there are some incredibly stupid violent muslims in the world and stop hiding from that fact it does no one any good to deny it it only makes the more reasonable muslims look like they are protecting the bad ones can you see that i don t deny this fact the thrust of my argument here is that a salameh is according to us law innocent as he has not been found guilty in a court of law as his guilt has not been established it is wrong for people to make postings based on this assumption b islam teaches us not to harm innocents if muslims who perhaps have not realized that islam teaches this perform such actions it is not because of the teachings of islam but rather in spite of and in contradiction to the teachings of islam this is an important distinction i should clarify what muslims usually mean when they say muslim in general anyone who calls themselves a muslim and does not do or outwardly profess something in clear contradiction with the essential teachings of islam is considered to be a muslim thus one who might do things contrary to islam through ignorance for example does not suddenly not become a muslim if one knowingly transgresses islamic teachings and essential principles though then one does leave islam the term muslim is to be contrasted with mu min which means true believer however whether a muslim is in reality a mu min is something known only by god and perhaps that person himself so you will not find the term mu min used very much by muslims in alt atheism because it is not known to anybody except myself and god whether i for example am a true believer or not for example i could just be putting on a show here and in reality believe something opposite to what i write here without anyone knowing thus when we say muslims we mean all those who outwardly profess to follow islam whether in practice they might in ignorance transgress islamic teachings by muslim we do not necessarily mean mu min or true believer in islam fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re gospel dating mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes david wood writes extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence more seriously this is just a high falutin way of saying i don t believe what you re saying are you making a meta argument here in any case you are wrong think of those invisible pink unicorns also the existence if jesus is not an extradinary claim i was responding to the historical accuracy of biblical claims of which the existence of jesus is only one and one that was not even mentioned in my post you may want to complain that the miracles attributed to him do constitute such claims and i won t argue otherwise but that is a different issue wrong that was exactly the issue go back and read the context included within my post and you ll see what i mean now that i ve done you the kindness of responding to your questions please do the same for me answer the charley challenges your claim that they are of the did not did so variety is a dishonest dodge that i feel certain fools only one person dave wood
alt.atheism	re and another thing mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes keith ryan writes you will ignore any criticism of your logic or any possible incongruenties in your stance you will not answer any questions on the validity of any opinion and or facts you state when i have to start saying that s not what i said and the response is did so there s no reason to continue if someone is not going to argue with my version of my position then they cannot be argued with but of course your version of your position has been included in the charley challenges so your claim above is a flat out lie further only last week you claimed that you might not answer the challenges because you were turned off by included text so which is it do you want your context included in my articles or not come to think of it this contradiction has the makings of a new entry in the next challenges post by the way i ve kept every bloody thing that you ve written related to this thread and will be only too pleased to re post any of it to back my position you seem to have forgotten that you leave an electronic paper trail on the net this is the usual theist approach no matter how many times a certain argument has been disproven shown to be non applicable or non sequitur they keep cropping up time after time speaking of non sequiturs this has little to do with what i just said and have some sauce for the goose some of the disproof is fallacies repeated over and over such as the law of nature argument someone posted recently now now let s not change the subject wouldn t it be best to finish up the thread in question before you begin new ones dave wood
alt.atheism	periodic post of charley challenges with additions new in this version challenge plus an addendum summarizing charley s responses to date this is a posting made periodically in an attempt to encourage charley wingate to address direct challenges to his evidently specious claims i ll continue to re post periodically until he answers them publicly indicates that he won t answer them stops posting to alt atheism the alt atheism community tells me to stop or i get totally bored i apologize for the somewhat juvenile nature of this approach but i m at a loss to figure out another way to crack his intransigence and seeming intellectual dishonesty this is re post charley i can t help but notice that you have still failed to provide answers to substantive questions that have been raised in response to your previous posts i submit that you don t answer them because you cannot answer them without running afoul of your own logic and i once again challenge you to prove me wrong to make the task as easy for you as possible i ll present concise re statements of some of the questions that you have failed to answer in the hope that you may address them one at a time for all to see should you fail to answer again within a reasonable time period i will re post this article with suitable additions and deletions at such time that i notice a post by you on another topic i will repeat this procedure until you either address the outstanding challenges or you cease to post to this newsgroup i would like to apologize in advance if you have answered any of these questions previously and your answer missed my notice if you can be kind enough to re post or e mail such articles i will be only too pleased to publicly rescind the challenge in question and remove it from this list now to the questions after claiming that all atheists fit into neat psychological patterns that you proposed then semi retracting that claim by stating that you weren t referring to all atheists i asked you to name some atheists who you feel don t fit your patterns to show that you indeed were not referring to all atheists that you are aware of you failed to do so please do so now question can you name any a a posters who do not fit into your stereotype here is the context for the question this is not true for everyone on this board and you are out of line in assuming that it is you however deleted the text further along where i said that i didn t mean to imply that everybody s experience was along the same lines whether or not you mean to make such implications you do so repeatedly allow me to approach the issue from another viewpoint can you name those atheists that you ve come across who do not fit into the patterns that you theorize you have taken umbrage to statements to the effect that senses and reason are all we have to go by and when pressed you have implied that we have an alternative called revelation i have repeatedly asked you to explain what revelation is and how one can both experience and interpret revelation without doing so via our senses and reason you failed to do so please do so now question can you explain what is revelation and how one can experience and interpret it without using senses and inherent reasoning here is the context for the question revelation is not reason and if we do have revelation then reasoning is not all we have first show me that revelation exists second if revelation is not perceived through the senses how exactly is it perceived according to my webster s revelation is an act of revealing or communicating divine truth now tell me how such a thing can be revealed communicated other than via the senses tell me how you can interpret this revelation other than with reason that is using your brain to interpret what you are sensing when i say there is no way for a human being to interface with the universe other than via the senses as interpreted by reason your brain it is because this is the simple truth if you have another mechanism of interface by all means share it with us then later you cannot escape the fact that our entire interface with the universe is our senses and our reason period again this is indefensible no it is simple truth i challenge you to show me otherwise then later few mystics will agree to this assertion and the common defense of redefining senses to absorb for instance mystical experiences is begs the question of whether some senses are better than others i allow you the broadest definition of senses to make things easier for you now show me that mystical experiences exist remember you aren t allowed to go by testimony of others e g mystics since you have dismissed my testimony as unreliable you know tainted by my own bias further once these mystical thingies are absorbed show me evidence that a human can recognize and respond to them short of interpretation via that person s reasoning capabilities i challenge you to show me these things if you cannot do so you might as well give up the fight then later let me reiterate you have not explained your interpretation of your experiences so it is not possible for me to have attacked them in point of fact i specifically challenged you to explain this revelation stuff that you were talking about and i note for the record that you appear to have declined my challenge what is it how is it sensed how is it interpreted and how does this sensing and interpretation occur without the conduit of our senses and reasoning abilities you have answered none of these questions that go straight to the heart of your claims if you can t answer them your claims are entirely specious you have stated that all claims to dispassionate analysis made by a a posters are unverifiable and fantastical i asked you to identify one such claim that i have made you have failed to do so please do so now question have i made any claims at all that are unverifiable and fantastical if so please repeat them here is the context for the question i must thank david wood a most sensitive and intelligent if wrong posting then later likewise the reference to unverifiable fantastical claims represents fairly accurately my reaction to all of the claims to dispassionate analysis that are repeated in this group give me your address and i ll be pleased to send you a dictionary failing that can you name one claim that i have made that is in any sense unverifiable or fantastical i demand that you retract this statement if you cannot offer up evidence if you follow your usual pattern of ignoring the challenge then you are simply an asshole first you dismissed claims by atheists that they became atheists as a result of reason then later you stated that if one accepted the axioms of reason that one couldn t help but become atheist i asked you to explain the contradiction your only response was a statement that the question was incoherent an opinion not shared by others that i have asked be they atheist or theist you have failed to answer the question please do so now question do you retract your claim that a a posters have not become atheists as a result of reason despite their testimony to that effect if you don t retract that claim do you retract the subsequent claim that acceptance of the axioms of reason inevitably result in atheism here is the context for the question first quote we have here a bunch of people who claim that their position is based on reason it is up to atheists to prove it to me then second quote but i do not see how one can accept these axioms and not end up with an atheistic point of view first you claimed that you would probably not answer these challenges because they contained too much in the way of included text from previous posts later you implied that you wouldn t respond because i was putting words in your mouth please clarify this seeming contradiction question do you prefer to respond to challenges that include context from your own posts or that i paraphrase your positions in order to avoid included text here is the context for the question first you said my ordinary rules are that i don t read articles over over lines or articles in which there is nothing but included text on the first screen these are not rules of morality but practicality then later if someone is not going to argue with my version of my position then they cannot be argued with as usual your responses are awaited with anticipation dave wood p s for the record below is a compilation of charley s responses to these challenges to date this makes no sense to me at all it gives the appearance either of utter incoherence or of answering some question of mr wood s imagination mr wood i do not subscribe to the opinion that a gauntlet thrown down on the net requires any response whatsoever at some point i might read and respond to your article and then again i might not my ordinary rules are that i don t read articles over over lines or articles in which there is nothing but included text on the first screen these are not rules of morality but practicality i left out something else i don t respond to utmost on my list of things to avoid are arguments about the arguments meta arguments as some call them when i have to start saying that s not what i said and the response is did so there s no reason to continue if someone is not going to argue with my version of my position then they cannot be argued with
alt.atheism	re political atheists halat pooh bears jim halat writes i think an objective morality does exist but that most flavors of morality are only approximations to it once again a natural or objective morality is fairly easily defined as long as you have a goal in mind that is what is the purpose of this morality maybe i m not quite getting what you mean by this but i think objective morality is an oxymoron by definition it seems any goal oriented issue like this is subjective by nature i don t get how you re using the word objective but the goal need not be a subjective one for instance the goal of natural morality is the propogation of a species perhaps it wasn t really until the more intelligent animals came along that some revisions to this were necessary intelligent animals have different needs than the others and hence a morality suited to them must be a bit more complicated than the law of the jungle i don t think that self actualization is so subjective as you might think and by objectivity i am assuming that the ideals of any such system could be carried out completely keith
alt.atheism	request for support i have a request for those who would like to see charley wingate respond to the charley challenges and judging from my e mail there appear to be quite a few of you it is clear that mr wingate intends to continue to post tangential or unrelated articles while ingoring the challenges themselves between the last two re postings of the challenges i noted perhaps a dozen or more posts by mr wingate none of which answered a single challenge it seems unmistakable to me that mr wingate hopes that the questions will just go away and he is doing his level best to change the subject given that this seems a rather common net theist tactic i would like to suggest that we impress upon him our desire for answers in the following manner ignore any future articles by mr wingate that do not address the challenges until he answers them or explictly announces that he refuses to do so or if you must respond to one of his articles include within it something similar to the following please answer the questions posed to you in the charley challenges really i m not looking to humiliate anyone here i just want some honest answers you wouldn t think that honesty would be too much to ask from a devout christian would you nevermind that was a rhetorical question dave wood
alt.atheism	re gospel dating in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes assuming you are presenting it accurately i don t see how this argument really leads to any firm conclusion the material in john i m not sure exactly what is referred to here but i ll take for granted the similarity to the matt luke q material is different hence one could have almost any relationship between the two right up to john getting it straight from jesus mouth no the argument says john has known q ie a codified version of the logia and not the original assuming that there has been one it has weaknesses of course like that john might have known the original yet rather referred to q in his text or that the logia were given in a codified version in the first place the argument alone does not allow a firm conclusion but it fits well into the dating usually given for the gospels we are talking date of texts here not the age of the authors the usual explanation for the time order of mark matthew and luke does not consider their respective ages it says matthew has read the text of mark and luke that of matthew and probably that of mark the version of the usual theory i have heard has matthew and luke independently relying on mark and q one would think that if luke relied on matthew we wouldn t have the grating inconsistencies in the geneologies for one thing not necessarily luke may have trusted the version he knew better than the version given by matthew improving on matthew would give a motive for instance as far as i know the theory that luke has known matthew is based on a statistical analysis of the texts as it is assumed that john knew the content of luke s text the evidence for that is not overwhelming admittedly this is the part that is particularly new to me if it were possible that you could point me to a reference i d be grateful yep but it will take another day or so to get the source i hope your german is good enough unfortunately i haven t got the info at hand it was i think in the late s or early s and it was possibly as old as ce when they are from about why do they shed doubt on the order on putting john after the rest of the three because it closes up the gap between supposed writing and the existing copy quit a bit the further away from the original the more copies can be written and therefore survival becomes more probable i still do not see how copies from allow to change the dating of john that john was a disciple is not generally accepted the style and language together with the theology are usually used as counterargument i m not really impressed with the theology argument but i m really pointing this out as an if and as i pointed out earlier one cannot make these arguments about i peter i see no reason not to accept it as an authentic letter yes but an if gives only possibilities and no evidence the authencity of many letters is still discussed it looks as if conclusions about them are not drawn because some pet dogmas of the churches would probably fall with them as well one step and one generation removed is bad even in our times compare that to reports of similar events in our century in almost illiterate societies the best analogy would be reporters talking to the participants which is not so bad well rather like some newsletter of a political party reporting from the big meeting not necessarily wrong but certainly bad in other words one does not know what the original of mark did look like and arguments based on mark are pretty weak but the statement of divinity is not in that section and in any case it s agreed that the most important epistles predate mark yes but the accuracy of their tradition is another problem question are there letters not from paul and predating mark claiming the divinity of jesus benedikt
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution in article ba c ac i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article pq tinn lp senator bedfellow mit edu bobs thnext mit edu robert singleton writes deletion i will argue that your latter statement i believe that no gods exist does rest upon faith that is if you are making a positive statement that no gods exist strong atheism rather than merely saying i don t know and therefore don t believe in them and don t not believe in then weak atheism once again to not believe in god is different than saying i believe that god does not exist i still maintain the position even after reading the faqs that strong atheism requires faith no it in the way it is usually used in my view you are saying here that driving a car requires faith that the car drives i m not saying this at all it requires no faith on my part to say the car drives because i ve seen it drive i ve done more than at in fact i ve actually driven it now what does require some faith is the belief that my senses give an accurate representation of what s out there but there is no evidence pro or con for the existence or non existence of god see what i have to say below on this for me it is a conclusion and i have no more faith in it than i have in the premises and the argument used sorry if i remain skeptical i don t believe it s entirely a conclusion that you have seen no evidence that there is a god is correct neither have i but lack of evidence for the existence of something is in no way evidence for the non existence of something the creationist have a similar mode of argumentation in which if they disprove evolution the establish creation you personally have never seen a neutrino before but they exist the pink unicorn analogy breaks down and is rather naive i have a scientific theory that explains the appearance of animal life evolution when i draw the conclusion that pink unicorns don t exist because i haven t seen them this conclusion has it s foundation in observation and theory a pink unicorn if it did exist would be qualitatively similar to other known entities that is to say since there is good evidence that all life on earth has evolved from more primitive ancestors these pink unicorns would share a common anscestory with horses and zebras and such god however has no such correspondence with anything imo there is no physical frame work of observation to draw any conclusions from but first let me say the following we might have a language problem here in regards to faith and existence i as a christian maintain that god does not exist to exist means to have being in space and time god does not have being god is being kierkegaard once said that god does not exist he is eternal with this said i feel it s rather pointless to debate the so called existence of god and that is not what i m doing here i believe that god is the source and ground of being when you say that god does not exist i also accept this statement but we obviously mean two different things by it however in what follows i will use the phrase the existence of god in it s usual sense and this is the sense that i think you are using it i would like a clarification upon what you mean by the existence of god no that s a word game i disagree with you profoundly on this i haven t defined god as existence in fact i haven t defined god but this might be getting off the subject although if you think it s relevant we can come back to it further saying god is existence is either a waste of time existence is already used and there is no need to replace it by god or you are implying more with it in which case your definition and your argument so far are incomplete making it a fallacy you are using wrong categories here or perhaps you misunderstand what i m saying i m making no argument what so ever and offering no definition so there is no fallacy i m not trying to convince you of anything i believe and that rests upon faith and it is inappropriate to apply the category of logic in this realm unless someone tells you that they can logically prove god or that they have evidence or then the use of logic to disprove their claims if fine and necessary btw an incomplete argument is not a fallacy some things are not even wrong deletion one can never prove that god does or does not exist when you say that you believe god does not exist and that this is an opinion based upon observation i will have to ask what observtions are you refering to there are no observations pro or con that are valid here in establishing a positive belief deletion where does that follow aren t observations based on the assumption that something exists i don t follow you here certainly one can make observations of things that they didn t know existed i still maintain that one cannot use observation to infer that god does not exist such a positive assertion requires a leap and wouldn t you say there is a level of definition that the assumption god is is meaningful if not i would reject that concept anyway so where is your evidence for that god is is meaningful at some level once again you seem to completely misunderstand me i have no evidence that god is is meaningful at any level maybe such a response as you gave just comes naturally to you because so many people try to run their own private conception of god down your throat i however am not doing this i am arguing one and only one thing that to make a positive assertion about something for which there can in principle be no evidence for or against requires a leap it requires faith i am as you would say a theist however there is a form of atheism that i can respect but it must be founded upon honesty benedikt bob singleton bobs thnext mit edu
alt.atheism	re second law was albert sabin joel hanes jjh diag amdahl com wrote mr connor s assertion that more complex later in paleontology is simply incorrect many lineages are known in which whole structures are lost for example snakes have lost their legs cave fish have lost their eyes some species have almost completely lost their males kiwis are descended from birds with functional wings joel the statements i made were illustrative of the inescapably anthrpomorphic quality of any desciption of an evolutionary process there is no way evolution can be described or explained in terms other than teleological that is my whole point even those who have reason to believe they understand evolution biologists for instance tend to personify nature and i can t help but wonder if it s because of the limits of the language or the nature of nature bill
alt.atheism	re gospel dating keith m ryan kmr po cwru edu wrote wild and fanciful claims require greater evidence if you state that one of the books in your room is blue i certainly do not need as much evidence to believe than if you were to claim that there is a two headed leapard in your bed and i don t mean a male lover in a leotard keith if the issue is what is truth then the consequences of whatever proposition argued is irrelevent if the issue is what are the consequences if such and such is true then truth is irrelevent which is it to be bill
alt.atheism	re gospel dating jim perry perry dsinc com wrote the bible says there is a god if that is true then our atheism is mistaken what of it seems pretty obvious to me socrates said there were many gods if that is true then your monotheism and our atheism is mistaken even if socrates never existed jim i think you must have come in late the discussion on my part at least began with benedikt s questioning of the historical acuuracy of the nt i was making the point that if the same standards are used to validate secular history that are used here to discredit nt history then virtually nothing is known of the first century you seem to be saying that the bible cannot be true because it speaks of the existence of god as it it were a fact your objection has nothing to do with history it is merely another statement of atheism bill
alt.atheism	re not the omni charley wingate mangoe cs umd edu wrote please enlighten me how is omnipotence contradictory by definition all that can occur in the universe is governed by the rules of nature thus god cannot break them anything that god does must be allowed in the rules somewhere therefore omnipotence cannot exist it contradicts the rules of nature obviously an omnipotent god can change the rules when you say by definition what exactly is being defined certainly not omnipotence you seem to be saying that the rules of nature are pre existant somehow that they not only define nature but actually cause it if that s what you mean i d like to hear your further thoughts on the question bill
alt.atheism	re if only he knew prudenti juncol juniata edu wrote upon arriving at home joseph probably took advantage of mary had his way with her so to speak of course word of this couldn t get around so mary being the highly religious follower that she was decided hey i ll just say that god impregnated me no one will ever know thus seen as a trustworthy and honorable soul she was believed and then came jesus the child born from violence dave can you explain the purpose of your post i can t imagine what you must have thougt it meant bill
alt.atheism	re allah akbar and praise the lord maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com wrote and thank the lord that bill connor has returned to set us straight now i know i can die happy when my lexus se wipes out on that rain slick curve in the rest of you had best straighten up because your time is even more limited most of you are going in the flu of maddi you know you re glad to have me visit but i won t stay long this time just shopping around bill
alt.atheism	re dear mr theist pixie dl andy bgsu edu wrote for all the problems technology has caused your types have made things even worse must we be reminded of the inquisition operation rescue the ku klux klan posse comitatus the club david duke salem witch trials the crusades gay bashings etc plus virtually each and every single war regardless of the level of technology has had theistic organizations cheering on the carnage chaplains etc and claiming that god was in favor of the whole ordeal don t forget to pray for our troops this is really tedious every bad thing that s ever happened is because the malefactors were under the influence of religion does anyone really believe that i ve seen it so often it must be a pretty general opinion in a a but i want to believe that atheists are really not that dishonest please stick to the facts and having accomplished that interpret them correctly bill
alt.atheism	re is morality constant was re biblical rape jim perry perry dsinc com wrote xenophobia both de facto and de jure as implemented in legal systems is widespread while the bible although not egalitarian specifically preaches kindness to the stranger and emphasizes in the book of ruth that a foreigner can join the nation and give rise to one of the great heroes of the nation clearly better than the alternative but as an american what strikes me as strange about this story is that it should have even been considered an issue jim there are a couple of things about your post and others in this thread that are a little confusing an atheist is one for whom all things can be understood as processes of nature exclusively there is no need for any recourse to divnity to describe or explain anything there is no purpose or direction for any event beyond those required by physics chemistry biology etc everything is random nothing is determnined this would also have to include human intelligence of course and all its products there is nothing requiring that life evolve or that it acquire intelligence it s just a happy accident for an atheist no event can be preferred to another or be said to have more or less value than another in any naturalistic sense and no thought about an event can have value the products of our intelligence are acquired from our environment from teaching training observation and experience and are only significant to the individual mind wherein they reside these mental processes and the images they produce for us are just electrical activity and nothing more content is of no consequence the human mind is as much a response to natural forces as water running down a hill how then can an atheist judge value what is the basis for criticizing the values ennumerated in the bible or the purposes imputed to god on what grounds can the the behavior of the reliogious be condemned it seems that in judging the values that motivate others to action you have to have some standard against which conduct is measured but what in nature can serve that purpose what law of nature can you invoke to establish your values since every event is entirely and exclusively a physical event what difference could it possibly make what anyone does religious or otherwise there can be no meaning or gradation of value the only way an atheist can object to any behaviour is to admit that the objection is entirely subjective and that he she just doesn t like it that s it any value judgement must be prefaced by the disclaimer that it is nothing more than a matter of personal opinion and carries no weight in any absolute sense that you don t like what god told people to do says nothing about god or god s commands it says only that there was an electrical event in your nervous system that created an emotional state that your mind coupled with a pre existing thought set to form that reaction that your objections seem well founded is due to the way you ve been conditioned there is no truth content the whole of your intellectual landscape is an illusion a virtual reality i didn t make these rules it s inherent in naturalistic atheism and to be consistent you have to accept the non significance of any human thought even your own all of this being so you have excluded yourself from any discussion of values right wrong goood evil etc and cannot participate your opinion about the bible can have no weight whatsoever bill
alt.atheism	re bill conner could you explain what any of this pertains to is this a position statement on something or typing practice and why are you using my name do you think this relates to anything i ve said and if so what bill
alt.atheism	re islam dress code for women in ba c i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes deletion of course people say what they think to be the religion and that this is not exactly the same coming from different people within the religion there is nothing with there existing different perspectives within the religion perhaps one can say that they tend to converge on the truth my point is that they are doing a lot of harm on the way in the meantime and that they converge is counterfactual religions appear to split and diverge even when there might be a true religion at the core the layers above determine what happens in practise and they are quite inhumane usually what you post then is supposed to be an answer but i don t see what is has got to do with what i say i will repeat it religions as are harm people and religions don t converge they split giving more to disagree upon and there is a lot of disagreement to whom one should be tolerant or if one should be tolerant at all ideologies also split giving more to disagree upon and may also lead to intolerance so do you also oppose all ideologies i don t think your argument is an argument against religion at all but just points out the weaknesses of human nature big deletion do women have souls in islam people have said here that some muslims say that women do not have souls i must admit i have never heard of such a view being held by muslims of any era i have heard of some christians of some eras holding this viewpoint but not muslims are you sure you might not be confusing christian history with islamic history yes it is supposed to have been a predominant view in the turkish caliphate i would like a reference if you have got one for this is news to me anyhow that women are the spiritual equals of men can be clearly shown from many verses of the qur an for example the qur an says for muslim men and women for believing men and women for devout men and women for true men and women for men and women who are patient and constant for men and women who humble themselves for men and women who give in charity for men and women who fast and deny themselves for men and women who guard their chastity and for men and women who engage much in god s praise for them has god prepared forgiveness and a great reward qur an abdullah yusuf ali s translation there are other quotes too but i think the above quote shows that men and women are spiritual equals and thus that women have souls just as men do very clearly no it does not it implies that they have souls but it does not say they have souls and it is not given that the quote above is given a high priority in all interpretations one must approach the qur an with intelligence any thinking approach to the qur an cannot but interpret the above verse and others like it that women and men are spiritual equals i think that the above verse does clearly imply that women have souls does it make any sense for something without a soul to be forgiven or to have a great reward understood to be in the after life i think the usual answer would be no in which case the part saying for them has god prepared forgiveness and a great reward says they have souls if it makes sense to say that things without souls can be forgiven then i have no idea what a soul is as for your saying that the quote above may not be given a high priority in all interpretations any thinking approach to the qur an has to give all verses of the qur an equal priority that is because according to muslim belief the whole qur an is the revelation of god in fact denying the truth of any part of the qur an is sufficient to be considered a disbeliever in islam quite similar to you other post even when the quran does not encourage slavery it is not justified to say that iit forbids or puts an end to slavery it is a non sequitur look any approach to the qur an must be done with intelligence and thought it is in this fashion that one can try to understand the quran s message in a book of finite length it cannot explicitly answer every question you want to put to it but through its teachings it can guide you i think however that women are the spiritual equals of men is clearly and unambiguously implied in the above verse and that since women can clearly be forgiven and rewarded they must have souls from the above verse let s try to understand what the qur an is trying to teach rather than try to see how many ways it can be misinterpreted by ignoring this passage or that passage the misinterpretations of the qur an based on ignoring this verse or that verse are infinite but the interpretations fully consistent are more limited let s try to discuss these interpretations consistent with the text rather than how people can ignore this bit or that bit for that is just showing how people can try to twist islam for their own ends something i do not deny but provides no reflection on the true teachings of islam whatsoever fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage in apr ennews eas asu edu guncer enuxha eas asu edu selim guncer writes you might not like what bernard lewis writes about label him as a zionist or such to discredit him etc you misrepresent me selim the hard evidence for my statements about his lack of objectivity are presented quite clearly in the book orientalism by edward said edward said by the way is a christian not a muslim i think he is pretty much objective in his treatment in race and slavery in the middle east since he clearly distinguishes between slavery under islam and the practice of slavery in other countries like the us prior to the civil war he also does not conceal that there are verses in the quran which promote the liberation of slaves what he doesn t and i don t think nobody can deduce from these verses is that slavery will eventually be abolished in islamic countries now you might rather conveniently blame the practice of slavery on muslims but the facts are out there i also fail to see the relevance of the claim of lewis being a zionist to what i wrote regarding bernard lewis him being a zionist gives him a political motive for his giving misrepresentations and half truths about islam read orientalism by edward said see the evidence for yourself in fact i may post some of it here if it isn t too long they were encyclopaedic information which anybody can access that slavery was abolished at certain dates some years after muhammed that this was the cause of tensions in the ottoman empire between the arab slave traders and the government etc we also have in the asu library volumes of british documents on slavery where reports and documents concerning slavery all around the world can be found which i checked some of the incidents lewis mentions so i don t think ones political stance has anything to do with documentary evidence i haven t read lewis s article so i can t comment directly upon it and have only spoken about his writings in general so far that his political motives make him a biased writer on islam his anti islamic polemics as i understand it are often quite subtle and are often based on telling half truths again read orientalism by edward said i am not asking you to take what i say on trust in fact i am urging you not to do so but to get this book it is a well known book and check the evidence out for yourself the issue i raised was that slaves were used for sexual purposes when it was claimed that islam prohibits extra marital sex i wrote that the prophet himself had concubines i wrote an incident in which the prophet advised on someone who did not want his concubine to get pregnant etc which is contrary to the notion that sex is for procreation only in other words such claims are baseless in the quran and the hadith if slavery is in reality as opposed to in the practice of some muslims opposed by islam then using slaves for sexual purposes is necessarily opposed too i seem to be unsuccesful in getting through to you islam is not advocating slavery slavery was an existing institution in the th century it advised on slaves being freed for good deeds etc which is nothing new many cultures saw this as a good thing what is the problem here but i can argue rightfully that slaves were discouraged about thinking about their statuses politically the quran rewards the good slave so obey your master and perhaps one day you ll be free but it is very understandable that i do not communicate with muslims since they assume the quran is from a god and i think it is a rule based system imposed on the society for preservation of the status quo slaves are a part of this system the subordination of women so that their function in society boils down to child making is a part of this system etc i understand your point of view selim i think rather it is us who are not getting through to you some of the points you repeat above i have already answered before regarding women i have made posting after posting on this subject showing that islam is not anti woman etc however have you been completely ignoring my postings or just missing them i just reposted a very good one under the title islam and women reposted from soc religion islam if this has already disappeared from your site then please email me telling me so and i will email you a copy of this excellent article imho your understanding of the issue of women in islam is sadly deficient regarding slaves my posting on slavery the second one i made which is a repost of an article i wrote early last year is based completely on the qur an and contains numerous qur anic verses and hadiths to support its point of view our approaches are different you are arguing from a historical standpoint and i am arguing directly from the teachings of the qur an and hadiths now just because people say they are muslims and perform a particular action does that automatically mean that their action is part of islam even if it is opposed by the qur an and sunnah no of course not let me give you a concrete example which might help clarify this for you the qur an prohibits drinking now if a person says i am a muslim and then proceeds to drink a bottle of beer does this now mean that islam teaches that people should drink beer of course not and only an idiot would think so do you see my point it is very natural to think that the author authors of the quran had no idea that the socio economic structure they were advocating would experience at least two paradigm shifts in years in the western cultures first with the end of the feudal era and the rise of commerce second with the industrial revolution well rules have changed and the status quo has driven muslim countries into misery trying to survive in a heathen world muslim countries have failed economically they were unable to accumulate any wealth directly due to the uncomprimising economic rules in the quran in fact the rise of islam can easily be modeled after the pyramid effect you do not produce any wealth at home but increase your wealth by conquering places you are judging islam here on capitalist terms capitalism is an ideology based largely on the assumption that people want to maximise their wealth this assumption is in opposition to islamic teachings to say islam is bad because it is not capitalist is pretty unthinking islam does not pretend to be capitalist and does not try to be capitalist this does not mean that islam does not support a free market for it does in general but there are other parts of capitalism which are opposed to islam as i understand it when this stopped you and i were left bare in the open for emperialists to devour no capital no industry very poor social services the education level in muslim countries are the lowest in the world the health statistics are miserable etc one can postulate numerous reasons for this your theory is that it is because islam is not secularist and capitalist etc etc selim i will give you a clear historical example to show you the fallacy of your views if you think as you obviously do that islam lack of education and power for a large part of history the islamic world was very powerful for a significant section of history the islamic world was the foremost in the sciences so to say that islam is for example anti education is completely absurd you try to blame this situation on islam history shows that your conclusion is false and that instead there must be other reasons for this situation you blame muslims for not following the quran but i blame muslims for following the quran well selim your viewpoint on women in islam makes me question the extent of your knowledge of islam i really think you are not knowledgeable enough to be able to judge whether the muslims are following the qur an or not your idea is baseless from historical facts it is a poor utopia the islamic world was at the forefront of the world in science at one stage yet somehow in your theory it is by following the qur an that muslims are backwards in education selim it is your thesis that is anti historical for you conveniently overlook this historical fact which contradicts your theory while my ideas are derived from social and economic history you have certainly not shown this you have merely stated it so far it seems to me that your view on islam being anti education is quite contrary to history that you are so convinced of your views makes me wonder just how objectively you are trying to look at all of this my solution to all muslims is simple cut the crap i think selim you should consider taking your own advice get the facts straight here too and work hard to reverse the effects of years of ignorance selim you have such conviction of your viewpoint yet you demonstrate ignorance not only of islam but also of islamic history particularly with respect to muslims being leaders of science till about or so i think yet you say that your viewpoint is based on history selim if i remember right you say in one of your earlier posts that you are an apostate from islam i think you should slow down and start thinking clearly about the issues and start reading some of our postings about islam rather than ignoring them as you so obviously have fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re jews can t hide from keith cco in article pqdor s fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes the poster casually trashed two thousand years of jewish history and ken replied that there had previously been people like him in germany i think the problem here is that i pretty much ignored the part about the jews sightseeing for years thinking instead that the important part of what the original poster said was the bit about killing palestinians in retrospect i can see how the sightseeing thing would be offensive to many i originally saw it just as poetic license but it s understandable that others might see it differently i still think that ken came on a bit strong though i also think that your advice to masud khan before you argue with someone like mr arromdee it s a good idea to do a little homework or at least think was unnecessary that s right there have been there have also been people who were formally nazis but the nazi party would have gone nowhere without the active and tacit support of the ordinary man in the street who behaved as though casual anti semitism was perfectly acceptable now what exactly don t you understand about what i wrote and why don t you see what it has to do with the matter at hand throughout all your articles in this thread there is the tacit assumption that the original poster was exhibiting casual anti semitism if i agreed with that then maybe your speech on why this is bad might have been relevant but i think you re reading a lot into one flip sentence while probably not true in this case too often the charge of anti semitism gets thrown around in order to stifle legitimate criticism of the state of israel anyway i d rather be somewhere else so i m outta this thread doug graham dgraham bnr ca my opinions are my own
alt.atheism	alt atheism faq frequently asked questions archive name atheism faq alt atheism archive name faq last modified april version alt atheism frequently asked questions this file contains responses to articles which occur repeatedly in alt atheism points covered here are ones which are not covered in the introduction to atheism you are advised to read that article as well before posting these answers are not intended to be exhaustive or definitive the purpose of the periodic faq postings is not to stifle debate but to raise its level if you have something to say concerning one of these questions and which isn t covered by the answer given please feel free to make your point overview of contents what is the purpose of this newsgroup hitler was an atheist the bible proves it pascal s wager what is occam s razor why it s good to believe in jesus why i know that god exists einstein and god does not play dice everyone worships something why there must be a causeless cause the universe is so complex it must have been designed independent evidence that the bible is true godel s incompleteness theorem george bush on atheism and patriotism i know where hell is biblical contradictions wanted the usa is a christian nation the usa is not a christian nation subject what is the purpose of this newsgroup typical posting why have a newsgroup about atheism why do atheists organize in groups what is there to discuss response many things are discussed here including whether it is reasonable to feign theism in order to avoid upsetting one s family prayer in schools discrimination against atheists sunday trading laws the satanic child abuse myth whether one should be an overt atheist or stay in the closet how religious societies prey sic on new college students how to get rid of unwanted proselytizers whether religion is a danger to society and or the individual why people become atheists of course inevitably alt atheism tends to attract evangelical christians looking for someone to convert most readers of the newsgroup don t want to be preached to although a few seem to derive perverse pleasure from tearing apart particularly ill considered or uninformed postings subject hitler was an atheist typical posting hitler was an atheist and look at what he did response adolf hitler was emphatically not an atheist as he said himself the folkish minded man in particular has the sacred duty each in his own denomination of making people stop just talking superficially of god s will and actually fulfill god s will and not let god s word be desecrated orig ital for god s will gave men their form their essence and their abilities anyone who destroys his work is declaring war on the lord s creation the divine will therefore let every man be active each in his own denomination if you please and let every man take it as his first and most sacred duty to oppose anyone who in his activity by word or deed steps outside the confines of his religious community and tries to butt into the other hence today i believe that i am acting in accordance with the will of the almighty creator by defending myself against the jew i am fighting for the work of the lord orig ital adolf hitler from mein kampf trans ralph mannheim of course someone bad believing something does not make that belief wrong it s also entirely possible that hitler was lying when he claimed to believe in god we certainly can t conclude that he s an atheist though subject the bible proves it typical posting in the bible it says that response most of the readers of alt atheism feel that the bible is of questionable accuracy as it was written thousands of years ago by many authors who were recording oral tradition that existed many years before thus any claimed truth in it is of questionable legitimacy this isn t to say that the bible has no truth in it simply that any truth must be examined before being accepted many of the readers of this group also feel that because any passage is subject to interpretation any claim that a passage means one thing and one thing only is not legitimate note that this feeling tends to extend to other books it is also remarkable to many atheists that theists tend to ignore other equally plausible religious books in favour of those of their own religion subject pascal s wager typical posting if you believe in god and turn out to be incorrect you have lost nothing but if you don t believe in god and turn out to be incorrect you will go to hell therefore it is foolish to be an atheist response this argument is known as pascal s wager it has several flaws firstly it does not indicate which religion to follow indeed there are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there this is often described as the avoiding the wrong hell problem if a person is a follower of religion x he may end up in religion y s version of hell secondly the statement that if you believe in god and turn out to be incorrect you have lost nothing is not true suppose you re believing in the wrong god the true god might punish you for your foolishness consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in favour of prayer another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely or at least that they are of comparable likelihood if in fact the possibility of there being a god is close to zero the argument becomes much less persuasive so sadly the argument is only likely to convince those who believe already also many feel that for intellectually honest people belief is based on evidence with some amount of intuition it is not a matter of will or cost benefit analysis formally speaking the argument consists of four statements one does not know whether god exists not believing in god is bad for one s eternal soul if god does exist believing in god is of no consequence if god does not exist therefore it is in one s interest to believe in god there are two approaches to the argument the first is to view as an assumption and as a consequence of it one problem with this approach in the abstract is that it creates information from no information this is considered invalid in information theory statement indicates one has no information about god but statement indicates that beneficial information can be gained from the absolute lack of information about god this violates information entropy information has been extracted from no information at no cost the alternative approach is to claim that and are both assumptions the problem with this is that is then basically an assumption which states the christian position and only a christian will agree with that assumption the argument thus collapses to if you are a christian it is in your interests to believe in god a rather vacuous tautology and not the way pascal intended the argument to be viewed the biggest reason why pascal s wager is a failure is that if god is omniscient he will certainly know who really believes and who believes as a wager he will spurn the latter assuming he actually cares at all whether people believe in him subject what is occam s razor typical posting people keep talking about occam s razor what is it response william of occam formulated a principle which has become known as occam s razor in its original form it said do not multiply entities unnecessarily that is if you can explain something without supposing the existence of some entity then do so nowadays when people refer to occam s razor they generally express it more generally for example as take the simplest solution the relevance to atheism is that we can look at two possible explanations for what we see around us there is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there which came into being as a result of natural processes there is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there and there is also a god who created the universe clearly this god must be of non zero complexity given that both explanations fit the facts occam s razor might suggest that we should take the simpler of the two solution number one unfortunately some argue that there is a third even more simple solution there isn t an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there we just imagine that there is this third option leads us logically towards solipsism which many people find unacceptable subject why it s good to believe in jesus typical posting i want to tell people about the virtues and benefits of my religion response preaching is not appreciated feel free to talk about your religion but please do not write postings that are on a conversion theme such postings do not belong on alt atheism and will be rejected from alt atheism moderated try the newsgroup talk religion misc you would doubtless not welcome postings from atheists to your favourite newsgroup in an attempt to convert you please do unto others as you would have them do unto you often theists make their basic claims about god in the form of lengthy analogies or parables be aware that atheists have heard of god and know the basic claims about him if the sole purpose of your parable is to tell atheists that god exists and brings salvation you may as well not post it since it tells us nothing we have not been told before subject why i know that god exists typical posting i know from personal experience and prayer that god exists response just as many theists have personal evidence that the being they worship exists so many atheists have personal evidence that such beings do not exist that evidence varies from person to person furthermore without wishing to dismiss your evidence out of hand many people have claimed all kinds of unlikely things that they have been abducted by ufos visited by the ghost of elvis and so on subject einstein and god does not play dice typical posting albert einstein believed in god do you think you re cleverer than him response einstein did once comment that god does not play dice with the universe this quotation is commonly mentioned to show that einstein believed in the christian god used this way it is out of context it refers to einstein s refusal to accept the uncertainties indicated by quantum theory furthermore einstein s religious background was jewish rather than christian a better quotation showing what einstein thought about god is the following i believe in spinoza s god who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists not in a god who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings einstein was unable to accept quantum theory because of his belief in an objective orderly reality a reality which would not be subject to random events and which would not be dependent upon the observer he believed that qm was incomplete and that a better theory would have no need for statistical interpretations so far no such better theory has been found and much evidence suggests that it never will be a longer quote from einstein appears in science philosophy and religion a symposium published by the conference on science philosophy and religion in their relation to the democratic way of life inc new york in it he says the more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature for him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events to be sure the doctrine of a personal god interfering with natural events could never be refuted italics his in the real sense by science for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot but i am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal for a doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark will of necessity lose its effect on mankind with incalculable harm to human progress in their struggle for the ethical good teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal god that is give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests in their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the good the true and the beautiful in humanity itself this is to be sure a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task einstein has also said it was of course a lie what you read about my religous convictions a lie which is being systematically repeated i do not believe in a personal god and i have never denied this but have expressed it clearly if something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it the latter quote is from albert einstein the human side edited by helen dukas and banesh hoffman and published by princeton university press also from the same book i do not believe in immortality of the individual and i consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it of course the fact that einstein chose not to believe in christianity does not in itself imply that christianity is false subject everyone worships something typical posting everyone worships something whether it s money power or god response if that is true everyone is a polytheist theists care just as much about those things that atheists care about if the atheists reactions to for example their families amount to worship then so do the theists subject why there must be a causeless cause typical posting sets of integers that have a lower bound each have a smallest member so chains of causes must all have a first element a causeless cause response the set of real numbers greater than zero has a definite lower bound but has no smallest member further even if it is true that there must be a causeless cause that does not imply that that cause must be a conscious supernatural entity and especially not that any such entity must match the description favoured by any particular religion subject the universe is so complex it must have been designed typical posting the presence of design in the universe proves there is a god surely you don t think all this appeared here just by chance response this is known as the argument from design it is a matter of dispute whether there is any element of design in the universe those who believe that the complexity and diversity of living creatures on the earth is evidence of a creator are best advised to read the newsgroup talk origins for a while there is insufficient space to summarize both sides of that debate here however the conclusion is that there is no scientific evidence in favour of so called scientific creationism furthermore there is much evidence observation and theory that can explain many of the complexities of the universe and life on earth the origin of the argument by design is a feeling that the existence of something as incredibly intricate as say a human is so improbable that surely it can t have come about by chance that surely there must be some external intelligence directing things so that humans come from the chaos deliberately but if human intelligence is so improbable surely the existence of a mind capable of fashioning an entire universe complete with conscious beings must be immeasurably more unlikely the approach used to argue in favour of the existence of a creator can be turned around and applied to the creationist position this leads us to the familiar theme of if a creator created the universe what created the creator but with the addition of spiralling improbability the only way out is to declare that the creator was not created and just is or was from here we might as well ask what is wrong with saying that the universe just is without introducing a creator indeed stephen hawking in his book a brief history of time explains his theory that the universe is closed and finite in extent with no beginning or end the argument from design is often stated by analogy in the so called watchmaker argument one is asked to imagine that one has found a watch on the beach does one assume that it was created by a watchmaker or that it evolved naturally of course one assumes a watchmaker yet like the watch the universe is intricate and complex so the argument goes the universe too must have a creator the watchmaker analogy suffers from three particular flaws over and above those common to all arguments by design firstly a watchmaker creates watches from pre existing materials whereas god is claimed to have created the universe from nothing these two sorts of creation are clearly fundamentally different and the analogy is therefore rather weak secondly a watchmaker makes watches but there are many other things in the world if we walked further along the beach and found a nuclear reactor we wouldn t assume it was created by the watchmaker the argument would therefore suggest a multitude of creators each responsible for a different part of creation finally in the first part of the watchmaker argument we conclude that the watch is not part of nature because it is ordered and therefore stands out from the randomness of nature yet in the second part of the argument we start from the position that the universe is obviously not random but shows elements of order the watchmaker argument is thus internally inconsistent subject independent evidence that the bible is true typical posting the events of the new testament are confirmed by independent documentary evidence for example response the writings of josephus are often mentioned as independent documentary evidence early versions of josephus s work are thought not to have mentioned jesus or james the extant version discusses john in a non christian context many scholars believe that the original mentioned jesus and james in passing but that this was expanded by christian copyists several reconstructions of the original text have been published to this effect much information appears in the ecclesiastical history of eusebius about c e it is worthless as historical material because of the deliberate falsification of the wily eusebius who is generally acknowledged as the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity it is eusebius who is generally given the title of authorship for this material aside from the new testament the biographical information about jesus is more well documented for further information please consult the frequently asked questions file for the newsgroup soc religion christian subject godel s incompleteness theorem typical posting godel s incompleteness theorem demonstrates that it is impossible for the bible to be both true and complete response godel s first incompleteness theorem says that in any consistent formal system which is sufficiently expressive that it can model ordinary arithmetic one can formulate expressions which can never be proven to be valid or invalid true or false within that formal system technically speaking the system must also be recursive that is there must be a decision procedure for determining whether a given string is an axiom within the formal system essentially all such systems can formulate what is known as a liar paradox the classic liar paradox sentence in ordinary english is this sentence is false note that if a proposition is undecidable the formal system cannot even deduce that it is undecidable the logic used in theological discussions is rarely well defined so claims that godel s incompleteness theorem demonstrates that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god are worthless in isolation one can trivially define a formal system in which it is possible to prove the existence of god simply by having the existence of god stated as an axiom this is unlikely to be viewed by atheists as a convincing proof however it may be possible to succeed in producing a formal system built on axioms that both atheists and theists agree with it may then be possible to show that godel s incompleteness theorem holds for that system however that would still not demonstrate that it is impossible to prove that god exists within the system furthermore it certainly wouldn t tell us anything about whether it is possible to prove the existence of god generally note also that all of these hypothetical formal systems tell us nothing about the actual existence of god the formal systems are just abstractions another frequent claim is that godel s incompleteness theorem demonstrates that a religious text the bible the book of mormon or whatever cannot be both consistent and universally applicable religious texts are not formal systems so such claims are nonsense subject george bush on atheism and patriotism typical posting did george bush really say that atheists should not be considered citizens response the following exchange took place at the chicago airport between robert i sherman of american atheist press and george bush on august sherman is a fully accredited reporter and was present by invitation as a member of the press corps the republican presidential nominee was there to announce federal disaster relief for illinois the discussion turned to the presidential primary rs what will you do to win the votes of americans who are atheists gb i guess i m pretty weak in the atheist community faith in god is important to me rs surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of americans who are atheists gb no i don t know that atheists should be considered as citizens nor should they be considered patriots this is one nation under god rs do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church gb yes i support the separation of church and state i m just not very high on atheists upi reported on may that various atheist organizations were still angry over the remarks the exchange appeared in the boulder daily camera on monday february it can also be found in free enquiry magazine fall issue volume number page on october mr sherman had a confrontation with ed murnane cochairman of the bush quayle illinois campaign this concerned a lawsuit mr sherman had filed to stop the community consolidated school district chicago illinois from forcing his first grade atheist son to pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states as one nation under god bush s phrase the following conversation took place rs american atheists filed the pledge of allegiance lawsuit yesterday does the bush campaign have an official response to this filing em it s bullshit rs what is bullshit em everything that american atheists does rob is bullshit rs thank you for telling me what the official position of the bush campaign is on this issue em you re welcome after bush s election american atheists wrote to bush asking him to retract his statement on february st c boyden gray counsel to the president replied on white house stationery that bush substantively stood by his original statement and wrote as you are aware the president is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government for further information contact american atheist veterans at the american atheist press s cameron road address subject i know where hell is typical posting i know where hell is hell is in norway response there are several towns called hell in various countries around the world including norway and the usa whilst this information is mildly amusing the first time one hears it readers of alt atheism are now getting pretty fed up with hearing it every week subject biblical contradictions wanted typical posting does anyone have a list of biblical contradictions response american atheist press publish an atheist s handbook detailing biblical contradictions see the accompanying posting on atheist resources for details there is a file containing some biblical contradictions available from the archive server mantis co uk see the contacts file for more information subject the usa is a christian nation typical posting because of the religious beliefs of the founding fathers shouldn t the united states be considered a christian nation response based upon the writings of several important founding fathers it is clear that they never intended the us to be a christian nation here are some quotes there are many more what influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on society in some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries a just government instituted to secure and perpetuate it needs them not james madison a memorial and remonstrance i almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved the cross consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced john adams in a letter to thomas jefferson history i believe furnishes no example of a priest ridden people maintaining a free civil government this marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose thomas jefferson to baron von humboldt i cannot conceive otherwise than that he the infinite father expects or requires no worship or praise from us but that he is even infinitely above it benjamin franklin from articles of belief and acts of religion nov subject the usa is not a christian nation typical posting is it true that george washington said that the united states is not in any sense founded upon the christian religion response no the quotation often given is in fact from article xi of the treaty of tripoli stat treaty series article as the government of the united states of america is not in any sense founded on the christian religion as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws religion or tranquility of musselmen and as the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any mehomitan nation it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries the text may be found in the congressional record or in treaty collections such as charles bevans treaties and other international agreements of the united states of america vol pp the english text of the treaty of tripoli was approved by the u s senate on june and ratified by president john adams on june it was recently discovered that the arabic version of the treaty not only lacks the quotation it lacks article xi altogether the person who translated the arabic to english was joel barlow consul general at algiers a close friend of thomas paine and an opponent of christianity it is possible that barlow made up article xi but since there is no arabic version of that article to be found it s hard to say in a new treaty of tripoli was ratified which no longer contained the quotation end of faq digest
alt.atheism	alt atheism faq constructing a logical argument archive name atheism logic alt atheism archive name logic last modified april version constructing a logical argument although there is much argument on usenet the general quality of argument found is poor this article attempts to provide a gentle introduction to logic in the hope of improving the general level of debate logic is the science of reasoning proof thinking or inference concise oed logic allows us to analyze a piece of reasoning and determine whether it is correct or not valid or invalid of course one does not need to study logic in order to reason correctly nevertheless a little basic knowledge of logic is often helpful when constructing or analyzing an argument note that no claim is being made here about whether logic is universally applicable the matter is very much open for debate this document merely explains how to use logic given that you have already decided that logic is the right tool for the job propositions or statements are the building blocks of a logical argument a proposition is a statement which is either true or false for example it is raining or today is tuesday propositions may be either asserted said to be true or denied said to be false note that this is a technical meaning of deny not the everyday meaning the proposition is the meaning of the statement not the particular arrangement of words used to express it so god exists and there exists a god both express the same proposition an argument is to quote the monty python sketch a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition an argument consists of three stages first of all the propositions which are necessary for the argument to continue are stated these are called the premises of the argument they are the evidence or reasons for accepting the argument and its conclusions premises or assertions are often indicated by phrases such as because since obviously and so on the phrase obviously is often viewed with suspicion as it can be used to intimidate others into accepting suspicious premises if something doesn t seem obvious to you don t be afraid to question it you can always say oh yes you re right it is obvious when you ve heard the explanation next the premises are used to derive further propositions by a process known as inference in inference one proposition is arrived at on the basis of one or more other propositions already accepted there are various forms of valid inference the propositions arrived at by inference may then be used in further inference inference is often denoted by phrases such as implies that or therefore finally we arrive at the conclusion of the argument the proposition which is affirmed on the basis of the premises and inference conclusions are often indicated by phrases such as therefore it follows that we conclude and so on the conclusion is often stated as the final stage of inference for example every event has a cause premise the universe has a beginning premise all beginnings involve an event premise this implies that the beginning of the universe involved an event inference therefore the universe has a cause inference and conclusion note that the conclusion of one argument might be a premise in another argument a proposition can only be called a premise or a conclusion with respect to a particular argument the terms do not make sense in isolation sometimes an argument will not follow the order given above for example the conclusions might be stated first and the premises stated afterwards in support of the conclusion this is perfectly valid if sometimes a little confusing recognizing an argument is much harder than recognizing premises or conclusions many people shower their writing with assertions without ever producing anything which one might reasonably describe as an argument some statements look like arguments but are not for example if the bible is accurate jesus must either have been insane an evil liar or the son of god this is not an argument it is a conditional statement it does not assert the premises which are necessary to support what appears to be its conclusion it also suffers from a number of other logical flaws but we ll come to those later another example god created you therefore do your duty to god the phrase do your duty to god is not a proposition since it is neither true nor false therefore it is not a conclusion and the sentence is not an argument finally causality is important consider a statement of the form a because b if we re interested in establishing a and b is offered as evidence the statement is an argument if we re trying to establish the truth of b then it is not an argument it is an explanation for example there must be something wrong with the engine of my car because it will not start this is an argument my car will not start because there is something wrong with the engine this is an explanation there are two traditional types of argument deductive and inductive a deductive argument is one which provides conclusive proof of its conclusions that is an argument where if the premises are true the conclusion must also be true a deductive argument is either valid or invalid a valid argument is defined as one where if the premises are true then the conclusion is true an inductive argument is one where the premises provide some evidence for the truth of the conclusion inductive arguments are not valid or invalid however we can talk about whether they are better or worse than other arguments and about how probable their premises are there are forms of argument in ordinary language which are neither deductive nor inductive however we will concentrate for the moment on deductive arguments as they are often viewed as the most rigorous and convincing it is important to note that the fact that a deductive argument is valid does not imply that its conclusion holds this is because of the slightly counter intuitive nature of implication which we must now consider more carefully obviously a valid argument can consist of true propositions however an argument may be entirely valid even if it contains only false propositions for example all insects have wings premise woodlice are insects premise therefore woodlice have wings conclusion here the conclusion is not true because the argument s premises are false if the argument s premises were true however the conclusion would be true the argument is thus entirely valid more subtly we can reach a true conclusion from one or more false premises as in all fish live in the sea premise dolphins are fish premise therefore dolphins live in the sea conclusion however the one thing we cannot do is reach a false conclusion through valid inference from true premises we can therefore draw up a truth table for implication the symbol denotes implication a is the premise b the conclusion t and f represent true and false respectively premise conclusion inference a b a b f f t if the premises are false and the inference f t t valid the conclusion can be true or false t f f if the premises are true and the conclusion false the inference must be invalid t t t if the premises are true and the inference valid the conclusion must be true a sound argument is a valid argument whose premises are true a sound argument therefore arrives at a true conclusion be careful not to confuse valid arguments with sound arguments to delve further into the structure of logical arguments would require lengthy discussion of linguistics and philosophy it is simpler and probably more useful to summarize the major pitfalls to be avoided when constructing an argument these pitfalls are known as fallacies in everyday english the term fallacy is used to refer to mistaken beliefs as well as to the faulty reasoning that leads to those beliefs this is fair enough but in logic the term is generally used to refer to a form of technically incorrect argument especially if the argument appears valid or convincing so for the purposes of this discussion we define a fallacy as a logical argument which appears to be correct but which can be seen to be incorrect when examined more closely by studying fallacies we aim to avoid being misled by them the following list of fallacies is not intended to be exhaustive argumentum ad baculum appeal to force the appeal to force is committed when the arguer resorts to force or the threat of force in order to try and push the acceptance of a conclusion it is often used by politicians and can be summarized as might makes right the force threatened need not be a direct threat from the arguer for example thus there is ample proof of the truth of the bible all those who refuse to accept that truth will burn in hell argumentum ad hominem argumentum ad hominem is literally argument directed at the man the abusive variety of argumentum ad hominem occurs when instead of trying to disprove the truth of an assertion the arguer attacks the person or people making the assertion this is invalid because the truth of an assertion does not depend upon the goodness of those asserting it for example atheism is an evil philosophy it is practised by communists and murderers sometimes in a court of law doubt is cast upon the testimony of a witness by showing for example that he is a known perjurer this is a valid way of reducing the credibility of the testimony given by the witness and not argumentum ad hominem however it does not demonstrate that the witness s testimony is false to conclude otherwise is to fall victim of the argumentum ad ignorantiam see elsewhere in this list the circumstantial form of argumentum ad hominem is committed when a person argues that his opponent ought to accept the truth of an assertion because of the opponent s particular circumstances for example it is perfectly acceptable to kill animals for food how can you argue otherwise when you re quite happy to wear leather shoes this is an abusive charge of inconsistency used as an excuse for dismissing the opponent s argument this fallacy can also be used as a means of rejecting a conclusion for example of course you would argue that positive discrimination is a bad thing you re white this particular form of argumentum ad hominem when one alleges that one s adversary is rationalizing a conclusion formed from selfish interests is also known as poisoning the well argumentum ad ignorantium argumentum ad ignorantium means argument from ignorance this fallacy occurs whenever it is argued that something must be true simply because it has not been proved false or equivalently when it is argued that something must be false because it has not been proved true note that this is not the same as assuming that something is false until it has been proved true a basic scientific principle examples of course the bible is true nobody can prove otherwise of course telepathy and other psychic phenomena do not exist nobody has shown any proof that they are real note that this fallacy does not apply in a court of law where one is generally assumed innocent until proven guilty also in scientific investigation if it is known that an event would produce certain evidence of its having occurred the absence of such evidence can validly be used to infer that the event did not occur for example a flood as described in the bible would require an enormous volume of water to be present on the earth the earth does not have a tenth as much water even if we count that which is frozen into ice at the poles therefore no such flood occurred in science we can validly assume from lack of evidence that something has not occurred we cannot conclude with certainty that it has not occurred however argumentum ad misericordiam this is the appeal to pity also known as special pleading the fallacy is committed when the arguer appeals to pity for the sake of getting a conclusion accepted for example i did not murder my mother and father with an axe please don t find me guilty i m suffering enough through being an orphan argumentum ad populum this is known as appealing to the gallery or appealing to the people to commit this fallacy is to attempt to win acceptance of an assertion by appealing to a large group of people this form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language for example pornography must be banned it is violence against women the bible must be true millions of people know that it is are you trying to tell them that they are all mistaken fools argumentum ad numeram this fallacy is closely related to the argumentum ad populum it consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition the more likely it is that that proposition is correct argumentum ad verecundiam the appeal to authority uses the admiration of the famous to try and win support for an assertion for example isaac newton was a genius and he believed in god this line of argument is not always completely bogus for example reference to an admitted authority in a particular field may be relevant to a discussion of that subject for example we can distinguish quite clearly between stephen hawking has concluded that black holes give off radiation and john searle has concluded that it is impossible to build an intelligent computer hawking is a physicist and so we can reasonably expect his opinions on black hole radiation to be informed searle is a linguist so it is questionable whether he is well qualified to speak on the subject of machine intelligence the fallacy of accident the fallacy of accident is committed when a general rule is applied to a particular case whose accidental circumstances mean that the rule is inapplicable it is the error made when one goes from the general to the specific for example christians generally dislike atheists you are a christian so you must dislike atheists this fallacy is often committed by moralists and legalists who try to decide every moral and legal question by mechanically applying general rules converse accident hasty generalization this fallacy is the reverse of the fallacy of accident it occurs when one forms a general rule by examining only a few specific cases which are not representative of all possible cases for example jim bakker was an insincere christian therefore all christians are insincere sweeping generalization dicto simpliciter a sweeping generalization occurs when a general rule is applied to a particular situation in which the features of that particular situation render the rule inapplicable a sweeping generalization is the opposite of a hasty generalization non causa pro causa post hoc ergo propter hoc these are known as false cause fallacies the fallacy of non causa pro causa occurs when one identifies something as the cause of an event but it has not actually been shown to be the cause for example i took an aspirin and prayed to god and my headache disappeared so god cured me of the headache the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc occurs when something is assumed to be the cause of an event merely because it happened before the event for example the soviet union collapsed after taking up atheism therefore we must avoid atheism for the same reasons cum hoc ergo propter hoc this fallacy is similar to post hoc ergo propter hoc it asserts that because two events occur together they must be causally related and leaves no room for other factors that may be the cause s of the events petitio principii this fallacy occurs when the premises are at least as questionable as the conclusion reached circulus in demonstrando this fallacy occurs when one assumes as a premise the conclusion which one wishes to reach often the proposition will be rephrased so that the fallacy appears to be a valid argument for example homosexuals must not be allowed to hold government office hence any government official who is revealed to be a homosexual will lose his job therefore homosexuals will do anything to hide their secret and will be open to blackmail therefore homosexuals cannot be allowed to hold government office note that the argument is entirely circular the premise is the same as the conclusion an argument like the above has actually been cited as the reason for the british secret services official ban on homosexual employees another example is the classic we know that god exists because the bible tells us so and we know that the bible is true because it is the word of god complex question fallacy of interrogation this is the fallacy of presupposition one example is the classic loaded question have you stopped beating your wife the question presupposes a definite answer to another question which has not even been asked this trick is often used by lawyers in cross examination when they ask questions like where did you hide the money you stole similarly politicians often ask loaded questions such as how long will this ec interference in our affairs be allowed to continue or does the chancellor plan two more years of ruinous privatization ignoratio elenchi the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion consists of claiming that an argument supports a particular conclusion when it is actually logically nothing to do with that conclusion for example a christian may begin by saying that he will argue that the teachings of christianity are undoubtably true if he then argues at length that christianity is of great help to many people no matter how well he argues he will not have shown that christian teachings are true sadly such fallacious arguments are often successful because they arouse emotions which cause others to view the supposed conclusion in a more favourable light equivocation equivocation occurs when a key word is used with two or more different meanings in the same argument for example what could be more affordable than free software but to make sure that it remains free that users can do what they like with it we must place a license on it to make sure that will always be freely redistributable amphiboly amphiboly occurs when the premises used in an argument are ambiguous because of careless or ungrammatical phrasing accent accent is another form of fallacy through shifting meaning in this case the meaning is changed by altering which parts of a statement are emphasized for example consider we should not speak ill of our friends and we should not speak ill of our friends fallacies of composition one fallacy of composition is to conclude that a property shared by the parts of something must apply to the whole for example the bicycle is made entirely of low mass components and is therefore very lightweight the other fallacy of composition is to conclude that a property of a number of individual items is shared by a collection of those items for example a car uses less petrol and causes less pollution than a bus therefore cars are less environmentally damaging than buses fallacy of division the fallacy of division is the opposite of the fallacy of composition like its opposite it exists in two varieties the first is to assume that a property of some thing must apply to its parts for example you are studying at a rich college therefore you must be rich the other is to assume that a property of a collection of items is shared by each item for example ants can destroy a tree therefore this ant can destroy a tree the slippery slope argument this argument states that should one event occur so will other harmful events there is no proof made that the harmful events are caused by the first event for example if we legalize marijuana then we would have to legalize crack and heroin and we ll have a nation full of drug addicts on welfare therefore we cannot legalize marijuana a is based on b fallacies is a type of fallacies these fallacies occur when one attempts to argue that things are in some way similar without actually specifying in what way they are similar examples isn t history based upon faith if so then isn t the bible also a form of history islam is based on faith christianity is based on faith so isn t islam a form of christianity cats are a form of animal based on carbon chemistry dogs are a form of animal based on carbon chemistry so aren t dogs a form of cat affirmation of the consequent this fallacy is an argument of the form a implies b b is true therefore a is true to understand why it is a fallacy examine the truth table for implication given earlier denial of the antecedent this fallacy is an argument of the form a implies b a is false therefore b is false again the truth table for implication makes it clear why this is a fallacy note that this fallacy is different from non causa pro causa the latter has the form a implies b a is false therefore b is false where a does not in fact imply b at all here the problem is not that the implication is invalid rather it is that the falseness of a does not allow us to deduce anything about b converting a conditional this fallacy is an argument of the form if a then b therefore if b then a argumentum ad antiquitam this is the fallacy of asserting that something is right or good simply because it is old or because that s the way it s always been argumentum ad novitam this is the opposite of the argumentum ad antiquitam it is the fallacy of asserting that something is more correct simply because it is new or newer than something else argumentum ad crumenam the fallacy of believing that money is a criterion of correctness that those with more money are more likely to be right argumentum ad lazarum the fallacy of assuming that because someone is poor he or she is sounder or more virtuous than one who is wealthier this fallacy is the opposite of the argumentum ad crumenam argumentum ad nauseam this is the incorrect belief that an assertion is more likely to be true the more often it is heard an argumentum ad nauseum is one that employs constant repetition in asserting something bifurcation also referred to as the black and white fallacy bifurcation occurs when one presents a situation as having only two alternatives where in fact other alternatives exist or can exist plurium interrogationum many questions this fallacy occurs when a questioner demands a simple answer to a complex question non sequitur a non sequitur is an argument where the conclusion is drawn from premises which are not logically connected with it red herring this fallacy is committed when irrelevant material is introduced to the issue being discussed so that everyone s attention is diverted away from the points being made towards a different conclusion reification hypostatization reification occurs when an abstract concept is treated as a concrete thing shifting the burden of proof the burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition shifting the burden of proof a special case of argumentum ad ignorantium is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made the source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise straw man the straw man fallacy is to misrepresent someone else s position so that it can be attacked more easily then to knock down that misrepresented position then to conclude that the original position has been demolished it is a fallacy because it fails to deal with the actual arguments that have been made the extended analogy the fallacy of the extended analogy often occurs when some suggested general rule is being argued over the fallacy is to assume that mentioning two different situations in an argument about a general rule constitutes a claim that those situations are analogous to each other this fallacy is best explained using a real example from a debate about anti cryptography legislation i believe it is always wrong to oppose the law by breaking it such a position is odious it implies that you would not have supported martin luther king are you saying that cryptography legislation is as important as the struggle for black liberation how dare you tu quoque this is the famous you too fallacy it occurs when an action is argued to be acceptable because the other party has performed it for instance you re just being randomly abusive so you ve been abusive too
alt.atheism	alt atheism faq overview for new readers archive name atheism overview alt atheism archive name overview last modified april version overview welcome to alt atheism and alt atheism moderated this is the first in a series of regular postings aimed at new readers of the newsgroups many groups of a controversial nature have noticed that new readers often come up with the same questions mis statements or misconceptions and post them to the net in addition people often request information which has been posted time and time again in order to try and cut down on this the alt atheism groups have a series of five regular postings under the following titles alt atheism faq overview for new readers alt atheism faq introduction to atheism alt atheism faq frequently asked questions faq alt atheism faq constructing a logical argument alt atheism faq atheist resources this is article number please read numbers and before posting the others are entirely optional if you are new to usenet you may also find it helpful to read the newsgroup news announce newusers the articles titled a primer on how to work with the usenet community answers to frequently asked questions about usenet and hints on writing style for usenet are particularly relevant questions concerning how news works are best asked in news newusers questions if you are unable to find any of the articles listed above see the finding stuff section below credits these files could not have been written without the assistance of the many readers of alt atheism and alt atheism moderated in particular i d like to thank the following people kck cs cmu edu karl kluge perry dsinc com jim perry netoprwa ncsuvm cc ncsu edu wayne aiken chpetk gdr bath ac uk toby kelsey jkp cs hut fi jyrki kuoppala geoff arnold east sun com geoff arnold torkel sics se torkel franzen kmldorf utdallas edu george kimeldorf roe quads uchicago edu greg roelofs arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee madhaus netcom com maddi hausmann j j psuvm psu edu john a johnson dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham mayne open cs fsu edu william mayne ajr bigbird hri com andy rosen stoesser ira uka de achim stoesser bosullvn unix tcd ie bryan o sullivan lippard ccit arizona edu james j lippard s b rigel tamu edu s baum ydobyns phoenix princeton edu york h dobyns schroede sdsc edu wayne schroeder baldwin csservera usna navy mil j d baldwin d nibby unhh unh edu dana nibby dempsey kodak com richard c dempsey jmunch hertz elee calpoly edu john david munch pdc dcs ed ac uk paul crowley rz mips complang tuwien ac at richard zach tycchow math mit edu tim chow simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale and countless others i ve forgotten these articles are free truly free you may copy them and distribute them to anyone you wish however please send any changes or corrections to the author and please do not re post copies of the articles to alt atheism it does nobody any good to have multiple versions of the same document floating around the network finding stuff all of the faq files should be somewhere on your news system here are some suggestions on what to do if you can t find them check the newsgroup alt atheism look for subject lines starting with alt atheism faq check the newsgroup news answers for the same subject lines if you don t find anything in steps or your news system isn t set up correctly and you may wish to tell your system administrator about the problem if you have anonymous ftp access connect to rtfm mit edu go to the directory pub usenet alt atheism and you ll find the latest versions of the faq files there ftp is a a way of copying files between networked computers if you need help in using or getting started with ftp send e mail to mail server rtfm mit edu with send usenet news answers ftp list faq in the body there are other sites which also carry news answers postings the article introduction to the news answers newsgroup carries a list of these sites the article is posted regularly to news answers if you don t have ftp send mail to mail server rtfm mit edu consisting of the following lines send usenet news answers finding sources send usenet alt atheism faq send usenet alt atheism introduction send usenet alt atheism logic send usenet alt atheism resources penultimate resort send mail to mail server mantis co uk consisting of the following lines send atheism faq faq txt send atheism faq logic txt send atheism faq intro txt send atheism faq resource txt and our poor overworked modems will try and send you a copy of the files there s other stuff too interesting commands to try are help and send atheism index last resort mail mathew mantis co uk or post an article to the newsgroup asking how you can get the faq files you should only do this if you ve tried the above methods and they ve failed it s not nice to clutter the newsgroup or people s mailboxes with requests for files it s better than posting without reading the faq though for instance people whose email addresses get mangled in transit and who don t have ftp will probably need assistance obtaining the faq files mathew
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics date apr gmt from bake timmons timmbake mcl ucsb edu these bible lovers have got to chill out if we all could just relax and see atheism for what it is the funny pages could have more material atheism denies the existence of god this is logically bankrupt where is the proof of this nonexistence it s a joke so nobody can take the above sense of atheism seriously perhaps perhaps because you just made it up now put your skateboard away and read the faq learn something about atheism before you get off on these tangents
alt.atheism	re so help you god in court i don t think there is really any question about which god the courts mean the request for solemnly swearing so help you god is always made after a request to pick up the bible in your left hand and hold up your right hand in the courts of nc at least it is always an old and new testament though it is hard to imagine picking up the bible and swearing to whatever god is sometimes the least of the religious influence there is a court in greensboro nc where the judge routinely has everyone in the courtroom stand to join him in prayer at the beginning of every session i ve thought about sitting through it but i m not terribly anxious to spend days in jail
alt.atheism	re nicknames in article apr zeus calpoly edu jmunch hertz elee calpoly edu john munch wrote mathew faq can t remember his last name keith lie tally sig ryan kent finn tastic sandvick cindy popsicle toes kandolf jim face sig tims simon clip that theist clippendale umar reasonable khan rob argue with g d strom dave buckminster fuller maddi never a useful post hausmann hey what about an affectionate nickname for me you could take my wrongly spelled surname cheers kent sandvik sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes atheism denies the existence of god this is logically bankrupt where is the proof of this nonexistence it s a joke this is one of my favorite fallacious points against atheism i e the belief that you can t deny anything that you can t prove doesn t exist this is easily nailed by showing that an infinite number of beings are conceivable but not observed to exist does this mean that we would have to believe in all of them according to the above poster we must believe in objects or beings that haven t been proved not to exist so why stop at god there could be a huge number of beings identical to ronald reagan except for trivial differences say one is missing a finger one has blond hair and they all live on other planets so we can t see them the reason no one but atheists bring this up is that none of these christians have a vested interest in these unknown beings with the exception of god fine but why do these people shoot themselves in the foot and mock the idea of a god here again is a classic atheist fallacy how did they shoot themselves in the foot radical muslims the crusades the inquisition are common examples that atheists like to bring up as marks against religion how weak only fools can take that drivel seriously how about the grand daddy of all human atrocities the stalinist movement twenty eight million people killed under this leadership which proudly featured atheism there is a big difference here stalin didn t say that he stood for a particular moral position i e against murder and terrorism etc and then did the opposite like the religious movements he was at least an honest killer this is not a support of stalin but an attack on this viewpoint saying that atheism supports murder and violence just because one man was a tyrant and an atheist is just bad logic look at all the russians that helped stalin that weren t atheists don t they contradict your point besides your point assumes that his atheism was relevant to his murdering people this is just the common assumption that atheists can t value life as much as theists which you didn t support agnostics are not as funny because they are more reasonable yet they do in some sense seem funny because they believe that the existence of god is unknowable this in itself is every bit the assumption that atheism is though it s less arrogant and pompous ah and here s another point you didn t get out of the faq an atheist doesn t have to hold the positive view that god doesn t exist he she may just have the non existence of the positive belief here s the example strong atheism i believe god does not exist a positive belief weak atheism i don t believe in a god a negative belief these are not the same some one that has never thought of the idea of god in their whole life is technically an atheist but not the kind that you are calling unreasonable or let s look at it this way in sets suppose that a given person has a huge set of ideas that i will represent as capital letters and these people then either believe that these ideas exist as real objects or not so if s santa then e s no is the person not believing in santa but still having the idea of santa but notice that even e s no is itself another idea this means you have lots of cases christian a e a yes b e b no g e g yes where g god atheist strong a e a g e g no atheist weak a e i e no g at all in the set agnostic a g e g indeterminate e why are people so afraid to say undecided it must just be another feature of human nature undecided is not a sexy trendy or glamorous word it does not inspire much hate or conflict it s not blasphemous it s not political in fact it is too often taken to mean unsophisticated nietzsche once said that a man would rather will nonexistence than not will at all but the darwinist way to put this is that humanity always prefers no or yes to a maybe because indecision is not a useful survival trait evolution has drilled it in us to take positions even false ones bake timmons iii m s
alt.atheism	christian morality is in vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article c l ey jts news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes actually my atheism is based on ignorance ignorance of the existence of any god don t fall into the atheists don t believe because of their pride mistake how do you know it s based on ignorance couldn t that be wrong why would it be wrong to fall into the trap that you mentioned if i m wrong god is free at any time to correct my mistake that he continues not to do so while supposedly proclaiming his undying love for my eternal soul speaks volumes what are the volumes that it speaks besides the fact that he leaves your choices up to you as for the trap you are not in a position to tell me that i don t believe in god because i do not wish to unless you can know my motivations better than i do myself you should believe me when i say that i earnestly searched for god for years and never found him i definitely agree that it s rather presumptuous for either side to give some psychological reasoning for another s belief mac bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits
alt.atheism	re koresh is god from mathew mathew mantis co uk the latest news seems to be that koresh will give himself up once he s finished writing a sequel to the bible in article p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes writing the seven seals or something along those lines he s already written the first of the seven which was around pages or so and has handed it over to an assistant for proofreading i would expect any decent messiah to have a built in spellchecker maybe koresh will come with one i heard he had asked the fbi to provide him with a word processor does anyone know if koresh has requested that it be wordperfect wp was written and is owned by mormons so the theological implications of requesting or refusing wp are profound darin wilkins scubed scubed com i will be president for food
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article pts psuvm psu edu pts psuvm psu edu writes pitt vs penn state controversy deleted bringing this back to alt atheism relevance so the guy says we re going to hell that isn t sufficient cause to bitch to the system operator at worst it s bad etiquette unless you really believe that someone is using his account without his knowledge permission which is actually against the law patrick saxton pitt is a second rate school in a second rate city pts psuvm psu edu anon pts ecl psu edu ob atheism in batman we trust no it wouldn t be sufficient cause to bitch to the system operator if this was just some guy saying that atheists are going to hell the point was that recently many messages were posted from that address each of these messages was posted to a different newsgroup with the apparent intent of provoking the readers of that particular group this along with the fact that these posts were written in all caps makes these posts suspect whoever is using this account is using it irresponsibly if it is the intended user they should consider appropriate action if it is someone else which seems a possibility then this is also reason to report it we get many posts in the flavor of the one that started this thread it is only because i have seen posts on other groups by this user that i am considering action brendan
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics thanks to whoever posted this wonderful parody of people who post without reading the faq i was laughing for a good minutes were there any parts of the faq that weren t mentioned i think there might have been one or two please don t tell me this wasn t a joke i m not ready to hear that yet brendan
alt.atheism	re is morality constant was re biblical rape bill conner bil okcforum osrhe edu wrote there are a couple of things about your post and others in this thread that are a little confusing an atheist is one for whom all things can be understood as processes of nature exclusively this definition does not include all atheists see the faq however i for one do think there is no need to invoke any divine or spiritual explanations it makes a big difference to claim that all things can be understood as natural processes and to claim that our observations do not require us to postulate any divine intervention or anything spiritual for that matter humans are not omnipotent and neither is science however science has one advantage theology doesn t it is self correcting with nature as its judge it is delightful to see how scientific inquiry is revealing a self consistent simple picture of our universe science is no longer a bunch of separate branches it is one from particle physics to psychology and no aspect of our life or our universe is safe from its stern and stony eye not even our consciousness there is no need for any recourse to divnity to describe or explain anything there is no purpose or direction for any event beyond those required by physics chemistry biology etc everything is random nothing is determnined actually determinism vs indeterminism is a philosophical question and science cannot say whether the whole thing is actually somehow superdeterministic or not i think the question does not have any meaning as far as individual human beings go if their apparent free will is an illusion it does not appear to be so from their perspective bill can you say for sure whether you have a free will or not this would also have to include human intelligence of course and all its products there is nothing requiring that life evolve or that it acquire intelligence it s just a happy accident maybe who are we to tell it seems intelligence is useful when during the history of earth has one species been able to control one third of the whole biosphere this can still be a result of numerous happy accidents our genetic machinery blindly replicates and preserves even that machinery can be result of the same principle only the systems that can start replicating will survive those which don t don t make it recommended reading t o for an atheist no event can be preferred to another or be said to have more or less value than another in any naturalistic sense and no thought about an event can have value from whose perspective i value events and things subjectively from my perspective nature does not have values because it does not have a perspective values arise from awareness if i have a subjective perspective it is easy to assume that other people also do and if i think about what it would it be like in their position i will eventually discover the golden rule morality is not necessarily a gift from heavens in fact it may be a product of evolution perhaps we are aware of ourselves because a sense of identity is helpful allows us to play the roles of others and make us respect others who seem to have identity too bill have you ever read aristotle try his ethica nikomakhea sp for starters how then can an atheist judge value what is the basis for criticizing the values ennumerated in the bible or the purposes imputed to god on what grounds can the the behavior of the reliogious be condemned it seems that in judging the values that motivate others to action you have to have some standard against which conduct is measured but what in nature can serve that purpose what law of nature can you invoke to establish your values c s lewis tells us that this argument was the main reason why he abandoned his atheism and became christian the argument is severely flawed some values such as the golden rule can have a rational basis some others like the basic idea of wanting to live has probably its roots in the way our brains are wired lewis ignored the very real possiblity that natural selection could also favour altruistic behaviour and morality as well indeed as humans evolved better and better in building and using tools they also became better at killing each other it is a logical necessity that evolution could only favour those who knew how to use tools but not against one s own people the bible reveals quite nicely that the morality of the early jews was not beyond this a simple set of rules to hold the people together under one god their god did not care much about people of other nations at the time of the nt things were quite different the jews were under rule of an empire and could no longer simply ignore the gentiles a new situation required a new morality and along with it a new religion was born a mutation in a meme pool since every event is entirely and exclusively a physical event what difference could it possibly make what anyone does religious or otherwise there can be no meaning or gradation of value the only way an atheist can object to any behaviour is to admit that the objection is entirely subjective and that he she just doesn t like it that s it any value judgement must be prefaced by the disclaimer that it is nothing more than a matter of personal opinion and carries no weight in any absolute sense it looks like you haven t bothered to read philosophy whenever there is an observer there is a subjective point of view which may value its existence and happiness even if that were just a result of some physical event and other s happiness too if the observer comes to think about it in an absolutely objective sense that is without any observers or subjects moral judgments lose their meaning it is not possible for a value to simply exist without a point of view this includes gods too their values are only their personal judgments not absolute truths since such truths do not exist the fact that most people do not deliberately want to hurt others is a manifestation of the way we have fought for our existence by becoming social beings who can think and value others existence morality is not property of humans alone chimps dolphins and many other species show great care for each other dolphins have sometimes saved humans from drowning a good deed indeed that you don t like what god told people to do says nothing about god or god s commands it says only that there was an electrical event in your nervous system that created an emotional state that your mind coupled with a pre existing thought set to form that reaction that your objections seem well founded is due to the way you ve been conditioned there is no truth content the whole of your intellectual landscape is an illusion a virtual reality the last statement does not logically follow in fact there is every reason to believe our thoughts can model reality very well and our senses can convey reliable information solipsism is still a logical possibility but not a very likely one you are continuously mixing two different views the subjective point of view which we all share and an objective point of view which does not exist any observer or thinker any personal being has its own point of view it does not matter whether this point of view is a result of some physical events or not it does not cease to be subjective from a non observers non point of view values do not exist neither does pain or pleasure or beauty or love such things are inherently subjective once again if god wants wives to submit to their husbands or even to make a leap of faith into the unknown or wants to punish us if we don t i disagree with his morals i do not think my morals come from any supreme being to remove my morals means the same than to make me a zombie a machine without a single thought if god gave us morality to judge but i disagree with him it is not my fault he is free to replace my morals i cannot see what is the point of giving someone a moral system which disagrees with one s own and then to get mad at this god must be schizophrenic all of this being so you have excluded yourself from any discussion of values right wrong goood evil etc and cannot participate your opinion about the bible can have no weight whatsoever neither can the opinion of any god for that matter i cannot understand why a subjective opinion of a thing made of matter is in any way less credible than an opinion of a thing made of something else bill take note absolute values must be independent of any being including gods if god has a subjective viewpoint it is his own point of view and his morals are his own petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes i am refuting nothing but simply telling you what i see which is childish propaganda and nothing to be refuted bcci was not an islamic bank so this post has nothing to do with islamic banks i am tiring of this infantile garbage so i simply evaluated it as such could you maybe flesh it out just a bit or did i miss the full grandeur of it s content by virtue of my blinding atheism you may be having difficulty seeing the light because you have your head up your ass i suggest making sure this is not the case before posting again it s time for your lesson in debate gregg yeah right begin included text from vice news tek com uunet psinntp wrldlnk usenet sun apr pdt i noticed a post on this topic in soc religion islam and since the topic of the bcci being not being an islamic bank has come up i have left in the one mention of the bcci bank called how bcci adapted the koran rules of banking from this bibliography bennett neil how bcci adapted the koran rules of banking the times august so let s see if some guy writes a piece with a title that implies something is the case then it must be so is that it this is how you support a position if you intend to have anyone respect it gregg any questions and i even managed to include the above reference with my head firmly engaged in my ass what s your excuse this supports nothing i have no reason to believe that this is piece is anything other than another anti islamic slander job i have no respect for titles only for real content i can look up this article if i want true but i can tell you bcci was not an islamic bank seeing as i m spending my time responding to propaganda in responding to this little sub thread i really don t feel a deep need to do more than make statements to the effect that the propaganda is false if someone wants to discuss the issue more seriously then i d be glad to have a real discussion providing references etc gregg
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes rule don t mix apples with oranges how can you say that the extermination by the mongols was worse than stalin khan conquered people unsympathetic to his cause that was atrocious but stalin killed millions of his own people who loved and worshipped him and his atheist state how can anyone be worse than that you re right and david koresh claimed to be a christian
alt.atheism	re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy find an encyclopedia volume h now look up hitler adolf he had many more people than just germans enamoured with him p moorcockpratchettdenislearydelasoulu iainmbanksneworderheathersbatmanpjorourke clive p a u l m o l o n e y come let us retract the foreskin of misconception james trinity college dublin and apply the wire brush of enlightenment geoffm brownbladerunnersugarcubeselectronicblaylockpowersspikeleekatebushhamcornpizza
alt.atheism	re the pope is jewish west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes the pope is jewish i guess they re right and i always thought that the thing on his head was just a fancy hat not a jewish headpiece i don t remember the name it s all so clear now clear as mud as to what that headpiece is by chort crl nmsu edu source ap newswire the vatican home of genetic misfits michael a gillow noted geneticist has revealed some unusual data after working undercover in the vatican for the past years the popehat tm is actually an advanced bone spur reveals gillow in his groundshaking report gillow who had secretly studied the innermost workings of the vatican since returning from vietnam in a wheel chair first approached the scientific community with his theory in the late s the whole hat thing that was just a cover up the vatican didn t want the catholic community tm to realize their leader was hefting nearly kilograms of extraneous bone tissue on the top of his skull notes gillow in his report there are whole laboratories in the vatican that experiment with tissue transplants and bone marrow experiments what started as a genetic fluke in the mid s is now scientifically engineered and bred for the whole bone transplant idea started in the mid sixties inspired by doctor timothy leary transplanting deer bone cells into small white rats gillow is quick to point out the assassination attempt on pope john paul ii and the disappearance of dr leary from the public eye when it becomes time to replace the pope says gillow the old pope and the replacement pope are locked in a padded chamber they butt heads much like male yaks fighting for dominance of the herd the victor emerges and has earned the privilege of inseminating the choir boys p moorcockpratchettdenislearydelasoulu iainmbanksneworderheathersbatmanpjorourke clive p a u l m o l o n e y come let us retract the foreskin of misconception james trinity college dublin and apply the wire brush of enlightenment geoffm brownbladerunnersugarcubeselectronicblaylockpowersspikeleekatebushhamcornpizza
alt.atheism	re free moral agency and jeff clark in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes deletion you also said why did millions suffer for what adam and ee did seems a pretty sick way of going about creating a universe i m gonna respond by giving a small theology lesson forgive me i used to be a theology major first of all i believe that this planet is involved in a cosmic struggle the great controversy betweed christ and satan i borrowed a book title god has to consider the interests of the entire universe when making decisions deletion an universe it has created by the way can you tell me why it is less tyrannic to let one of one s own creatures do what it likes to others by your definitions your god has created satan with full knowledge what would happen including every choice of satan can you explain us what free will is and how it goes along with omniscience didn t your god know everything that would happen even before it created the world why is it concerned about being a tyrant when noone would care if everything was fine for them that the whole idea comes from the possibility to abuse power something your god introduced according to your description by the way are you sure that you have read the faq especially the part about preaching benedikt
alt.atheism	re the pope is jewish in article apr wam umd edu west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes last night while watching the a m rebroadcast of jerry springer a talk show i heard this jewel of a thought from a year old racist the focus of this show was on these kids and their hatred for the jewish religion and why some stuff deleted interesting and scary no they went on to say how the jews had killed their god and how in the end of time that all the races would go to their homelands of course they would remain in america which is new jeruselem as it says in gen what another kid said but the rest of the races would go home and then the great battle or plague or whatever revel says would happen and the jews would be killed the most interesting thing about this was that my roomate is catholic and had the kjv of the bible on his desk he immediatly opened it up and began to search for the quoted passages gen rev and john to look for himself and couldn t find what they said they saw i don t know i saw this show a while back and when i heard these kids quote the bible to justify their racist claims i looked up that quote about jesus hating jews since jesus himself was a jew my curiousity had been piqued by such a claim the jist of the passage and i am sorry but i can t recall which passage it was exactly was that jesus was condemning the pharisees for being corrupt of course the pharisees were jewish too but it wasn t jews as a whole that jesus was condemning just the powers that be nancy o connor psychology undergrad the opinions i express simon fraser university are my own burnaby b c canada
alt.atheism	re a silly question on x tianity werdna cco caltech edu andrew tong writes mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes question this attitude god character seems awfully egotistical and proud but christianity tells people to be humble what s the deal well god pretty much has a right to be egotistical and proud i mean he created you doesn t he have the right to be proud of such a job of course people don t have much of a right to be proud what have they accomplished that can match god s accomplishments anyways how do their abilities compare with those of god s we re an imbecile worm of the earth to quote pascal grumblegrumble if you were god and you created a universe wouldn t you be just a little irked if some self organizing cell globules on a tiny planet started thinking they were as great and awesome as you unfortunately the logic falls apart quick all perfect insulted or threatened by the actions of a lesser creature actually by offspring how why shuold any all powerful all perfect feel either proud or offended anything capable of being aware of the relationship of every aspect of every particle in the universe during every moment of time simultaneously should be able to understand the cause of every action of every cell globule on each tniy planet well actually now that i think of it it seems kinda odd that god would care at all about the earth ok so it was a bad example but the amazing fact is that he does care apparently and that he was willing to make some grand sacrifices to ensure our happiness all powerful owner of everything in the universe makes great sacrifices makes a great headline but it doesn t make any sense what did he sacrifice where did it go that he couldn t get it back if he gave something up who d he give it up to chris you guys have fun i m agoin to key west
alt.atheism	re i don t beleive in you either in article apr antioc antioch edu smauldin antioc antioch edu writes i stopped believing in you as well long before the invention of technology god ahhh go back to alt autotheism where you belong brian
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by theism evidence in article qid fct horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes i don t see anything special about theism in general that makes it a particular hazard more so than say stupidity anarchy or patriotism of course it depends on the religion but i see nothing about believing in gods that in and of itself entails or even promotes xenophobia genocide etc if the emphasis is on the in general then of course you re correct since you haven t really said anything if we restrict our observations to practiced religions there are lots of examples of god mandated genocide just ask the canaanites the point is that if you believe in a god and if you believe he has ordered you to eliminate an entire race you will likely make the attempt after all if it was ok in the past it could surely be ok in the present bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re free moral agency and jeff clark in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes this is the reason i like the controversy of post modernism the issues of polarities evil and good are just artificial constructs and they fall apart during a closer inspection the more i look into the notion of a constant struggle between the evil and good forces the more it sounds like a metaphor that people just assume without closer inspection more info please i m not well exposed to these ideas bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article apr news wesleyan edu ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu scott d sauyet writes in qabe innaff gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu writes chimpanzees fight wars over land but chimps are almost human keith could it be this is the last message from mr schneider and it s more than three days old are these his final words and how many here would find that appropriate or is it just that finals got in the way no the christians were leary of having an atheist spokesman seems so clandestine and all that so they had him removed of course keith is busy explaining to his fellow captives how he isn t really being persecuted since after all they are feeding him and any resistance on his part would only be viewed as trouble making i understand he did make a bit of a fuss when they tatooed in god we trust on his forehead though bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re new member in article c hiew s portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes hello i just started reading this group today and i think i am going to be a large participant in its daily postings i liked the section of the faq about constructing logical arguments well done i am an atheist but i do not try to turn other people into atheists i only try to figure why people believe the way they do i don t much care if they have a different view than i do when it comes down to it i could be wrong i am willing to admit the possibility something religious followers dont seem to have the capability to do welcome aboard i notice alot of posts from bobby why does anybody ever respond to his posts he always falls back on the same argument i think you just answered your own question there if the religion is followed it will cause no bad he is right just because an event was explained by a human to have been done in the name of religion does not mean that it actually followed the religion he will always point to the ideal and say that it wasn t followed so it can t be the reason for the event there really is no way to argue with him so why bother sure you may get upset because his answer is blind and not supported factually but he will win every time with his little argument i don t think there will be any postings from me in direct response to one of his most responses were against his postings that spouted the fact that all atheists are fools evil for not seeing how peachy islam is i would leave the pro con arguments of islam to fred rice who is more level headed and seems to know more on the subject anyway happy to be aboard how did you know i was going to welcome you abord dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com brian
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article house helios house helios usq edu au ron house writes marshall csugrad cs vt edu kevin marshall writes healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes you might think oh yeah then why didn t god destroy it in the bud before it got to the point it is now with millions through the ages suffering along in life the only answer i know is that satan made the claim that his way was better than god s god is allowing satan the chance to prove that his way is better than god s we all know what that has brought come on god is allowing the wishes of one individual to supercede the well being of billions i seriously doubt it having read the bible twice i never got the impression that god and satan were working in some sort of cooperative arrangement read the book of job oh that was just a bet brian
alt.atheism	re some thoughts i m sold where do i sign up brian the next book charles manson lord lunatic or liar
alt.atheism	re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people anyone who dies for a cause runs the risk of dying for a lie as for people being able to tell if he was a liar well we ve had grifters and charlatans since the beginning of civilization if david copperfield had been the messiah i bet he could have found plenty of believers jesus was hardly the first to claim to be a faith healer and he wasn t the first to be witnessed what sets him apart niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away rubbish nations have followed crazies liars psychopaths and megalomaniacs throughout history hitler tojo mussolini khomeini qadaffi stalin papa doc and nixon come to mind all from this century koresh is a non issue therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing take a discrete mathematics or formal logic course there are flaws in your logic everywhere and as i m sure others will tell you read the faq some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it of course you have to believe the bible first just because something is written in the bible does not mean it is true and the age of that tome plus the lack of external supporting evidence makes it less credible so if you do quote from the bible in the future try to back up that quote with supporting evidence otherwise you will get flamed mercilessly i don t think most people understand what a christian is it is certainly not what i see a lot in churches rather i think it should be a way of life and a total sacrafice of everything for god s sake he loved us enough to die and save us so we should do the same hey we can t do it god himself inspires us to turn our lives over to him that s tuff and most people don t want to do it to be a real christian would be something for the strong to persevere at but just like weight lifting or guitar playing drums whatever it takes time we don t rush it in one day christianity is your whole life it is not going to church once a week or helping poor people once in a while we box everything into time units such as work at this time sports tv social life god is above these boxes and should be carried with us into all these boxes that we have created for ourselves just like weight lifting or guitar playing eh i don t know how you define the world total but i would imagine a total sacrafice sp of everything for god s sake would involve more than a time commitment you are correct about our tendency to box everything into time units would you explain how one should involove god in sports and hehehe television kevin marshall computer science department virginia tech marshall csugrad cs vt edu blacksburg virginia
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes wait you just said that humans are rarely reasonable doesn t that contradict atheism where everything is explained through logic and reason this is the contradiction in atheism that proves it false bobby mozumder proving the existence of allah does anybody have bobby s post in which he said something like i don t know why there are more men than women in islamic countries maybe it s atheists killing the female children it s my personal favorite sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros
alt.atheism	re some thoughts did you read the faqs if no read the faqs if yes you wouldn t have posted such drivel the lord liar or lunatic argument is a false trilemma even if you disprove liar and lunatic which you haven t you have not eliminated the other possibilities such as mistaken misdirected or misunderstood you have arbitrarily set up three and only three possibilities without considering others read a good book on rhetoric and critical thinking if you think the lord liar or lunatic discussion is an example of a good argument you are in need of learning read the faqs again especially constructing a logical argument ignore these instructions at your peril disobeying them leaves you open for righteous flaming maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com centigram communications corp san jose california kids please don t try this at home remember i post professionally
alt.atheism	re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage oh this all sounds so nice everyone helping each other and always smiling and fluffy bunnies everywhere wake up people are just not like that it seems evident from history that no society has succeeded when it had to rely upon the goodwill and unselfishness of the people isn t it obvious from places like iran that even if there are only a few greedy people in society then they are going to be attracted to positions of power sounds like a recipe for disaster looking at historical evidence such perfect utopian islamic states didn t survive i agree people are people and even if you might start an islamic revolution and create this perfect state it takes some time and the internal corruption will destroy the ground rules again cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote anyhow on the basis of the apparent success of islamic banks it seems to me that the statement that a zero interest economy cannot survive in today s world may be a bit premature i m sure zero intested economical systems survive on a small scale co ops is not an islamic invention and we have co operatives working all around the world however such systems don t stand the corruption of a large scale operation actually nothing could handle human greed imho not even allah cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re new member in article c hiew s portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller wrote he is right just because an event was explained by a human to have been done in the name of religion does not mean that it actually followed the religion he will always point to the ideal and say that it wasn t followed so it can t be the reason for the event there really is no way to argue with him so why bother sure you may get upset because his answer is blind and not supported factually but he will win every time with his little argument i don t think there will be any postings from me in direct response to one of his hey glad to have some serious and constructive contributors in this newsgroup i agree on the statement above you might argue with bobby for eons and he still does not get it so the best thing is to spare your mental resources to discuss more interesting issues cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article qjfnv ogt horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer wrote does the term hero worship mean anything to you yes worshipping jesus as the super saver is indeed hero worshipping of the grand scale worshipping lenin that will make life pleasant for the working people is eh somehow similar or what i understand that gods are defined to be supernatural not merely superhuman the notion of lenin was on the borderline of supernatural insights into how to change the world he wasn t a communist god but he was the man who gave presents to kids during christmas actually i agree things are always relative and you can t have a direct mapping between a movement and a cause however the notion that communist russia was somewhat the typical atheist country is only something that robertson tilton et rest would believe in those atheists were not true unbelievers huh don t know what they were but they were fanatics indeed cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell wrote first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself seems he didn t understand anything about realities liar lunatic or the real thing is a very narrow view of the possibilities of jesus message sigh it seems religion makes your mind brain filter out anything that does not fit into your personal scheme so anyone that thinks the possibilities with jesus is bound to the classical lewis notion of liar lunatic or saint is indeed bound to become a christian cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article qjf o t horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qimbe sp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article qif g fp horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qialf p m fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i forget the origin of the quote but i gotta use words when i talk to you an atheist is one who lacks belief in gods yes if so then it s entirely plausible that an atheist could dig lenin or lennon to such an extent that it might be considered worship and still be an atheist anything else seems to be newspeak ask yourself the following question would you regard an ardent nazi as a republican simply because germany no longer had a kaiser no because that s based on false dichotomy there are more options than you present me and that of course is the point you can t simply divide the world into atheists and non atheists on the basis of god belief if all you care about is belief in a supernatural deity and have nothing to say about behaviour then belief in a supernatural being is your criterion but once you start talking about behaviour then someone s suscept ibility to be led by bad people into doing bad things is what you are i assume worried about and in that area what you care about is whether someone is sceptical critical and autonomous on the one hand or gullible excitable and easily led on the other i would say that a tendency to worship tyrants and ideologies indicates that a person is easily led whether they have a worship or belief in a supernatural hero rather than an earthly one seems to me to be beside the point jon
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article edm apr gocart twisto compaq com edm twisto compaq com ed mccreary writes on thu apr gmt bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell said dlb first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it dlb makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar dlb lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he dlb writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity dlb in the process he became a christian himself here we go again just the friendly folks at christian central come to save you
alt.atheism	re islamic genocide in article qjipo pen horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qinmd sp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes at any rate even if your interpretation is correct this does not imply that the killings are religously motivated which was the original poster s seeming claim tricky tricky i m replying to your blanket claim that they are not religiously motivated they aren t irish catholics in the south do not kill irish protestants in the south yet have precisely the same history behind them those who think the killings are religously motivated ignore the rather obvious matter of british occupation partition and misguided patriotism on both sides false dichotomy you claimed the killing were not religiously motivated and i m saying that s wrong i m not saying that each and every killing is religiously motivate as i spelled out in detail the problems fault along the religious divide because at the historical roots of this thing we have a catholic country partitioned and populated by a protestant one the grotesque killing of soldiers and civilians is supposedly motivated by patriotism civil rights issues and revenge it s only difficult to understand insofaras insanity is hard to understand religion need not be invoked to explain it does anyone else see the contradiction in this paragraph but to claim that the killings in n i are not religously motivated is grotesque all that means is that the church and believers are doing what they always do with history they can t face they rewrite it you re attacking a different claim my claim is that when an ira terrorist plants a bomb in warrington s he does not have as a motive the greater glory of god sorry frank but what i put in quotes is your own words from your posting qi b ec horus ap mchp sni de don t tell us now that it s a different claim if you can no longer stand behind your original claim just say so jon
alt.atheism	re i don t beleive in you either in article apr antioc antioch edu smauldin antioc antioch edu writes i stopped believing in you as well long before the invention of technology god don t listen to this guy he s just a crank at first this business about being the one true god was tolerated by the rest of us but now it has gotten completely out of hand besides it really isn t so bad when people stop believing in you it s much more relaxing when mortals aren t always begging you for favors zeus
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes if i state that i know that there is a green marble in a closed box which i have never seen nor have any evidence for its existance i would be guilty of deceit even if there is in fact a green marble inside the question of whether or not there is a green marble inside is irrelevent you go ahead and play with your marbles i love it i love it i love it wish i could fit all that into a sig file if someone is keeping a list of bobby quotes be sure to include this one stating an unproven opinion as a fact is deceit and knowingly being decietful is a falsehood and a lie so why do you think its an unproven opinion if i said something as fact but you think its opinion because you do not accept it then who s right the flat earthers state that the earth is flat is a fact i don t accept this i think it s an unproven opinion and i think the round earthers are right because they have better evidence than the flat earthers do although i can t prove that a god doesn t exist the arguments used to support a god s existence are weak and often self contradictory and i m not going to believe in a god unless someone comes over to me and gives me a reason to believe in a god that i absolutely can t ignore a while ago i read an interesting book by a fellow called von daenicken in which he proved some of the wildest things and on the last page he wrote something like can you prove it isn t so i certainly can t but i m not going to believe him because he based his proof on some really questionable stuff such as old myths he called it circumstancial evidence so far atheism hasn t made me kill anyone and i m regarded as quite an agreeable fellow really sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros
alt.atheism	islamic authority sic over women who kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan what kmr po cwru edu with rush leland stanford edu what apr leland stanford edu other readers i just joined but is this guy for real i m simply amazed kr sadly yes don t loose any sleep over old zlumber just kr have some fun with him but he is basically harmless kr at least if you don t work in ny city i don t find it hard to believe that ole zlumber really believes the hate and ignorant prattle he writes the frightening thought is there are people even worse than he to say that feminism equals superiority over men is laughable as long as he doesn t then proceed to pick up a rifle and start to shoot women as a preemptive strike aka the canada slaughter that occured a few years ago but then men killing women is nothing new islamic fundamentalists just have a better excuse qu ran from the vancouver sun thursday october by john davidson canadian press montreal perhaps it s the letter to the five year old daughter that shocks the most i hope one day you will be old enough to understand what happened to your parents wrote patrick prevost i loved your mother with a passion that went as far as hatred police found the piece of paper near prevost s body in his apartment in northeast montreal they say the year old mechanic committed suicide after killing his wife jocelyne parent the couple had been separated for a month and the woman had gone to his apartment to talk about getting some more money for food a violent quarrel broke out and prevost attacked his wife with a kitchen knife cutting her throat police said she was only the latest of women slain by a husband or lover in quebec in the last five weeks five children have also been slain as a result of the same domestic battles last year in quebec alone women were slain by their husbands that was more than one third of such cases across canada according to statistics from the canadian centre for justice rest of article ommited then to say that women are somehow better or should be the one to stay home and raise a child is also laughable women have traditionally done hard labor to support a family often more than men in many cultures throughout history seems to me it takes at least two adults to raise a child and that both should stay home to do so maximus wb
alt.atheism	re feminism and islam again in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes in article apr eagle wesleyan edu kmagnacca eagle wesleyan edu writes there s a way around that via the hadith which state that silence is taken to mean yes and that women may not speak before a judge who must conduct the marriage actaully that s a false hadith because it contradicts verses in the quran that says women may testify speak before a judge hadiths are declared false when they contradict the quran hadiths weren t written during the revelation or during the life of the prophet and so may contain errors so the only way you can tell a false hadith from a true one is if it contradicts the quran what if it relates to something that isn t explicitly spelled out in the quran also the quran wasn t written down during the life of muhammed either it wasn t long after but years or so is still long enough to shift a few verses around karl lastly i come to china in the hope all you touch and all you see of fulfilling a lifelong ambition is all your life will ever be dropping acid on the great wall duke pink floyd a lie is still a lie even if billion people believe it
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article apr abo fi mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka writes in qie fkt horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp writes in article ursa bear com halat pooh bears jim halat writes i m one of those people who does not know what the word objective means when put next to the word morality i assume its an idiom and cannot be defined by its separate terms give it a try objective morality is morality built from objective values and these objective values are please be specific and more importantly motivate i ll take a wild guess and say freedom is objectively valuable i base this on the assumption that if everyone in the world were deprived utterly of their freedom so that their every act was contrary to their volition almost all would want to complain therefore i take it that to assert or believe that freedom is not very valuable when almost everyone can see that it is is every bit as absurd as to assert it is not raining on a rainy day i take this to be a candidate for an objective value and it it is a necessary condition for objective morality that objective values such as this exist frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in article c c cn gb ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes i just borrowed a book from the library on khomeini s fatwa etc i found this useful passage regarding the legitimacy of the fatwa it was also common knowledge as prescribed by islamic law that the sentence was only applicable where the jurisdiction of islamic law applies moreover the sentence has to be passed by an islamic court and executed by the state machinery through the due process of the law even in islamic countries let alone in non muslim lands individuals cannot take the law into their own hands the sentence when passed must be carried out by the state through the usual machinery and not by individuals indeed it becomes a criminal act to take the law into one s own hands and punish the offender unless it is in the process of self defence moreover the offender must be brought to the notice of the court and it is the court who shoud decide how to deal with him this law applies equally to muslim as well as non muslim territories i agree fully with the above statement and is precisely what i meant by my previous statements about islam not being anarchist and the law not being enforcible despite the law being applicable hence on such clarification from the ulama islamic scholars muslims in britain before and after imam khomeini s fatwa made it very clear that since islamic law is not applicable to britain the hadd compulsory punishment cannot be applied here i disagree with this conclusion about the applicability of the islamic law to all muslims wherever they may be the above conclusion does not strictly follow from the foregoing but only the conclusion that the fatwa cannot be enforced according to islamic law however i do agree that the punishment cannot be applied to rushdie even were it well founded wow from the above it looks like that from an islamic viewpoint khomeini s fatwa constitutes a criminal act perhaps i could even go out on a limb and call khomeini a criminal on this basis certainly putting a price on the head of rushdie in britain is a criminal act according to islamic law anyhow i think it is understood by knowledgeable muslims that khomeini s fatwa is islamically illegitimate at least on the basis expounded above others such as myself and others who have posted here particularly umar khan and gregg jaeger i think go further and say that even the punishment constituted in the fatwa is against islamic law according to our understanding yes gregg
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote it is my understanding that it is generally agreed upon by the ulema islamic scholars that islamic law applies only in an islamic country of which the uk is not furthermore to take the law into one s own hands is a criminal act as these are matters for the state not for individuals nevertheless khomeini offered a cash prize for people to take the law into their own hands something which to my understanding is against islamic law yes this is also my understanding of the majority of islamic laws however i believe there are also certain legal rulings which in all five schools of law sunni and jaffari can be levelled against muslim or non muslims both within and outside dar al islam i do not know if apostasy when accompanied by active persistent and open hostility to islam falls into this category of the law i do know that historically apostasy has very rarely been punished at all let alone by the death penalty my understanding is that khomeini s ruling was not based on the law of apostasy alone it was well known that rushdie was an apostate long before he wrote the offending novel and certainly there is no precedent in the qur an hadith or in islamic history for indiscriminantly levelling death penalties for apostasy i believe the charge levelled against rushdie was that of fasad this ruling applies both within and outside the domain of an islamic state and it can be carried out by individuals the reward was not offered by khomeini but by individuals within iran stuff deleted also i think you are muddying the issue as you seem to assume that khomeini s fatwa was issued due to the distribution of the book my understanding is that khomeini s fatwa was issued in response to the writing and publishing of the book if my view is correct then your viewpoint that rushdie was sentenced for a crime in progress is incorrect i would concur that the thrust of the fatwa from what i remember was levelled at the author and all those who assisted in the publication of the book however the charge of fasad can encompass a number of lesser charges i remember that when diplomatic relations broke off between britain and iran over the fatwa iran stressed that the condemnation of the author and the removal of the book from circulation were two preliminary conditions for resolving the crisis but you are correct to point out that banning the book was not the main thrust behind the fatwa islamic charges such as fasad are levelled at people not books the rushdie situation was followed in iran for several months before the issuance of the fatwa rushdie went on a media blitz presenting himself as a lone knight guarding the sacred values of secular democracy and mocking the foolish concerns of people crazy enough to actually hold their religious beliefs as sacred fanning the flames and milking the controversy to boost his image and push the book he was everywhere in the media then muslim demonstrators in several countries were killed while protesting against the book rushdie appeared momentarily concerned then climbed back on his media horse to once again attack the muslims and defend his sacred rights it was at this point that the fatwa on fasad was issued the fatwa was levelled at the person of rushdie any actions of rushdie that feed the situation contribute to the legitimization of the ruling the book remains in circulation not by some independant will of its own but by the will of the author and the publishers the fatwa against the person of rushdie encompasses his actions as well the crime was certainly a crime in progress at many levels and was being played out and played up in the the full view of the media p s i m not sure about this but i think the charge of shatim also applies to rushdie and may be encompassed under the umbrella of the fasad ruling
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law what about the twelve imams who he considered incapable of error or sin khomeini supports this view of the twelve imans this is heresy for the very reasons i gave above i would be happy to discuss the issue of the imams with you although my preference would be to move the discussion to another newsgroup i feel a philosophy or religion group would be more appropriate the topic is deeply embedded in the world view of islam and the esoteric teachings of the prophet s a heresy does not enter into it at all except for those who see islam only as an exoteric religion that is only nominally if at all concerned with the metaphysical substance of man s being and nature a good introductory book in fact one of the best introductory books to islam in general is murtaza mutahhari s fundamental s of islamic thought god man and the universe mizan press translated by r campbell truly a beautiful book a follow up book if you can find a decent translation is wilaya the station of the master by the same author i think it also goes under the title of master and mastership it s a very small book really just a transcription of a lecture by the author the introduction to the beautiful psalms of islam translated by william c chittick available through muhammadi trust of great britain is also an excellent introduction to the subject we have these books in our university library i imagine any well stocked university library will have them from your posts you seem fairly well versed in sunni thought you should seek to know shi ite thought through knowledgeable shi ite authors as well at least that much respect is due before the charge of heresy is levelled as salaam a laikum
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article qif g fp horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qialf p m fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article qi egl horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes stuff deleted to the newsgroup at large how about this for a deal recognise that what happened in former communist russia has as much bearing on the validity of atheism as has the doings of sundry theists on the validity of their theism that s zip nada none the fallacy is known as ad hominem and it s an old one it should be in the holy faq in the book of constructing a logical argument apart from not making a lot of sense this is wrong there is no atheist creed that taught any communist what to do in the name of atheism there clearly are theistic creeds and instructions on how to act for theists they all madly conflict with one another but that s another issue lack of instructions on how to act might also be evil that s like saying that since mathematics includes no instructions on how to act it is evil atheism is not a moral system so why should it speak of instructions on how to act atheism is simply lack of belief in god plenty of theists think so so one could argue the case for atheism causes whatever i didn t like about the former ussr with as much validity as theism causes genocide that is to say no validity at all i think the argument that a particular theist system causes genocide can be made more convincingly than an argument that atheism causes genocide this is because theist systems contain instructions on how to act and one or more of these can be shown to cause genocide however since the atheist set of instructions is the null set how can you show that atheism causes genocide david choweller davec silicon csci csusb edu there are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment s notice to reveal the will of god on every possible subject george bernard shaw there are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment s notice to reveal the will of god on every possible subject george bernard shaw
alt.atheism	re the nonexistance of atheists in article bskendigc jcwx jzn netcom com bskendig netcom com brian kendig writes s c a quotes deleted it really looks like these people have no idea at all of what it means to be atheist there are more bobby mozumder clones in the world than i thought well that explains some things i posted on soc religion islam with an attached quote by bobby to the effect that all atheists are lying evil scum and asked if it was a commonly held idea among muslims i got no response asking about the unknown i guess karl lastly i come to china in the hope all you touch and all you see of fulfilling a lifelong ambition is all your life will ever be dropping acid on the great wall duke pink floyd a lie is still a lie even if billion people believe it
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes it appears that walla walla college will fill the same role in alt atheist that allegheny college fills in alt fan dan quayle first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself converts to xtianity have this tendency to excessively darken their pre xtian past frequently falsely anyone who embarks on an effort to destroy xtianity is suffering from deep megalomania a defect which is not cured by religious conversion the arguements he uses i am summing up the book is about whether jesus was god or not i know many of you don t believe but listen to a different perspective for we all have something to gain by listening to what others have to say different perspective different perspective bwahahahahahahahah the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was sigh perhaps big j was just mistaken about some of his claims perhaps he was normally insightful but had a few off days perhaps many most of the statements attributed to jesus were not made by him but were put into his mouth by later authors other possibilities abound surely someone seriously examining this question could come up with a decent list of possible alternatives unless the task is not serious examination of the question much less destroying xtianity but rather religious salesmanship some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie how many germans died for nazism how many russians died in the name of the proletarian dictatorship how many americans died to make the world safe for democracy what a silly question wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people is everyone who performs a healing god niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy it s probably hard to draw an entire nation to you unless you are crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing anyone who is convinced by this laughable logic deserves to be a xtian some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it don t bother many of the prophecies were fulfilled only in the eyes of xtian apologists who distort the meaning of isaiah and other ot books
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism deletions in apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes i really don t think you can imagine what it is like to be infinite first of all infinity is a mathematical concept created by humans to explain certain things in a certain way we don t know if it actually applies to reality we don t know if anything in the world is infinite it wouldn t be able to comprehend what reality is like for the programmer because that would require an infinite memory or whatever because reality is continuous and based on infinietely small units no units you don t know if the universe is actually continuous continuum is another mathematical concept based on infinity used to explain things in a certain way because humans do not know what infinite is we call it something beyond numbers we call it endless but we do not know what it is i have a pretty good idea of what infinity is it s a man made concept and like many man made concepts it has evolved through time ancient greeks had a different understanding of it so we can call allah infinitely powerful knowledgeable etc yet we cannot imagine what allah actually is because we just cannot imagine what it is like to be infinite precicely we don t even know if infinity applies to reality sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article qg g kl fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes you are amazed that i find it difficult to grasp it when people justify death threats against rushdie with the claim he was born muslim this is empty rhetoric i am amazed at your inability to understand what i am saying not that you find it difficult to grasp it when people justify death threats i find it amazing that your ability to consider abstract questions in isolation you seem to believe in the falsity of principles by the consequence of their abuse you must hate physics you re closer than you might imagine i certainly despised living under the soviet regime when it purported to organize society according to what they fondly imagined to be the objective conclusions of marxist dialectic but i don t hate physics so long as some clown doesn t start trying to control my life on the assumption that we are all interchangeable atoms rather than individual human beings jon
alt.atheism	re a little too satanic in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes jeff west writes you claimed that people that took the time to translate the bible would also take the time to get it right but here in less than a couple generations you ve been given ample proof agreed to by yourself above that the new versions tends to be out of step with other modern translations what i said was that people took time to copy the text correctly translations present completely different issues so why do i read in the papers that the qumram texts had different versions of some ot texts did i misunderstand jon
alt.atheism	re note to bobby m in apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes insults about the atheistic genocide was totally unintentional under atheism anything can happen good or bad including genocide and you know why this is because you ve conveniently defined a theist as someone who can do no wrong and you ve defined people who do wrong as atheists the above statement is circular not to mention bigoting and as such has no value sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote in article c c cn gb ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes stuff deleted what we should be demanding is for khomeini and his ilk to publicly come clean and to show their proof that islamic law punishes apostacy with death or that it tolerates any similar form of coversion of freedom of conscience all five schools of law to the best of my knowledge support the death sentence for apostasy when it is accompanied by open persistent and aggravated hostility to islam otherwise i agree there is no legal support for punishment of disbelief the qur an makes it clear that belief is a matter of conscience public or private disavowal of islam or conversion to another faith is not punishable there are some jurists who have gone against this trend and insisted that apostasy is punishable even by death but historically they are the exception cursing and insulting the prophets falls under the category of shatim i just borrowed a book from the library on khomeini s fatwa etc lots of stuff deleted and according to the above analysis it looks like khomeini s offering of a reward for rushdie s death in fact constitutes a criminal act according to islamic law please see my post under re yet more rushdie islamic law
alt.atheism	re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes looking at historical evidence such perfect utopian islamic states didn t survive i agree people are people and even if you might start an islamic revolution and create this perfect state it takes some time and the internal corruption will destroy the ground rules again nothing is perfect nothing is perpetual i e even if it is perfect it isn t going to stay that way forever perpetual machines cannot exist i thought that there were some laws in mechanics or thermodynamics stating that not an atheist bn naren bala software evaluation engineer home work all standard disclaimers apply
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article apr news wesleyan edu ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu scott d sauyet says are these his final words and how many here would find that appropriate or is it just that finals got in the way keep your fingers crossed why should i keep my fingers crossed i doubt it would do anything martin schulte
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article qkq t n horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes i ll take a wild guess and say freedom is objectively valuable i base this on the assumption that if everyone in the world were deprived utterly of their freedom so that their every act was contrary to their volition almost all would want to complain therefore i take it that to assert or believe that freedom is not very valuable when almost everyone can see that it is is every bit as absurd as to assert it is not raining on a rainy day i take this to be a candidate for an objective value and it it is a necessary condition for objective morality that objective values such as this exist my own personal and highly subjective opinion is that freedom is a good thing however when i here people assert that the only true freedom is in following the words of this and that messiah i realise that people don t even agree on the meaning of the word what does it mean to say that word x represents an objective value when word x has no objective meaning jon
alt.atheism	re where are they now in article qi innf n senator bedfellow mit edu tcbruno athena mit edu tom bruno writes wow leave your terminal for a few months and everyone you remember goes away how depressing actually there are a few familiar faces out there counting bob and kent but i don t seem to recognize anyone else has anyone heard from graham matthews recently or has he gotten his degree and sailed for greener pastures tm which brings me to the point of my posting how many people out there have been around alt atheism since i ve done my damnedest to stay on top of the newsgroup but when you fall behind you really fall behind it s still not as bad as rec arts startrek used to be but i digress has anyone tried to keep up with the deluge inquiring minds want to know also does anyone keep track of where the more infamous posters to alt atheism end up once they leave the newsgroup just curious i guess cheers tom bruno i am one of those people who always willl have unlimited stores of unfounded respect for people who have been on newsgroups mailing lists longer than i have so you certainly have my sympathy tom i have only been semi regularly posting it is toughto keep up since this february but i have been reading and following the threads since last august my school s newsreader was down for months and our incompetent computing services never bothered to find a new feed site so it wasn t accepting outgoing postings i don t think anyone keeps track of where other posters go it s that old love em and leave em internet for you again best regards adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it that s okay it s what all the rest of them who come on here say makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself this isn t the guy who was a lawyer was he could you give more info on this guy never mind i m sure there will be plenty of responses to this post and it will appear there the arguements he uses i am summing up the book is about whether jesus was god or not i know many of you don t believe but listen to a different perspective for we all have something to gain by listening to what others have to say this is true make sure it is true for all cases the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a why not both modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar why not die for a lie if you were poverty stricken and alunatic sounds perfecetly reasoable to me as to whether the societal dregs he had for followers would be able to tell if he was a liar or not not necessarily even if he died for what he believed in this still makes him completely selfish like us all so what s the difference people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people there is no historical proof of this see earlier threads besides he or at least his name have been the cause of enough deaths to make up for whatever healing he gave niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy sieg heil very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away who is david koresh i am curious therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing how does this follow your definition of lunatic and disproof thereof seem rather uhhh shaky some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it good idea i don t think most people understand what a christian is it is certainly not what i see a lot in churches naturally those or not true christians right rather i think it should be a way of life and a total sacrafice of everything for god s sake he loved us enough to die and save us so we should do the same hey we can t do it god himself inspires us to turn our lives over to him that s tuff and most people don t want to do it to be a real christian would be something for the strong to persevere at but just like weight lifting or guitar playing drums whatever it takes time we don t rush it in one day christianity is your whole life it is not going to church once a week or helping poor people once in a while we box everything into time units such as work at this time sports tv social life god is above these boxes and should be carried with us into all these boxes that we have created for ourselves someone else handle this i don t know if it s worth it sigh adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians in article apr nuscc nus sg cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes in article q l cva uxa ecn bgu edu gsu uxa ecn bgu edu eric molas wrote christianity is an infectious cult the reasons it flourishes are because it gives people without hope or driven purpose in life a safety blanked to hide behind oh wow all i have to do is follow this christian moral standard and i get eternal happiness i agree that in many cases primitive emotional feelings based on haha you won t laugh in hell mentalities makes certain religions very attractive for certain personalities i agree with both of u but i would like to make a small point xtianity other dogmatic religions not only attract people without hope etc but also attract average people as well i believe that xtainity thru its escapist doctrines absolutist attitudes provides great psychological shelter from day to day frustrations unhappiness fear of uncertainty unknown etc this is a good point but i think average people do not take up christianity so much out of fear or escapism but quite simply as a way to improve their social life or to get more involved with american culture if they are kids of immigrants for example since it is the overwhelming major religion in the western world in some form or other it is simply the choice people take if they are bored and want to do something new with their lives but not somethong too new or too out of the ordinary seems a little weak but as long as it doesn t hurt anybody the buddha had something to say about the attractiveness of religions when driven by fear man worships sacred mountains sacred stones and sacred trees however the buddha also said if somebody finds peace in any religion let him be these are good quotes and i agree with both of them but let s make sure to alter the scond one so that includes something like let him be as long as he is not preventing others from finding their peace or something like that of course i suppose if someone were really at peace there would be no need for inflicting evangelism personally i feel that since religion have such a poweful psychological effect we should let theists be but the problem is that religions cause enormous harm to non believers and to humanity as a whole holy wars inquisitions inter religious hatred impedence of science intellectual progress us them attitudes etc etc need i say more i really don t know what we can do about them any comments well it is a sure thing we will have to live with them all our lives their popularity seems to come and go i remember when i first entered high school i was an atheist always had been and so were about of my friends at this time of those have converted always to christianity they were all also immigrants from taiwan or sons of immigrants hence my earlier gross generalization christianity seems a lot more popular to people now than it ever has before since i ve been noticing maybe it is just my perceptions that are chagning who knows i for one am perfectly willing to live and let live with them so long as we have some set of abstract rights agreements on how we should treat each other i have no desire to be hurt by them or their notions for all the well put arguments on this usenet it never does any good argumentation does not really seem to apply to christians or even some atheists it must simply be a step the person takes naturally almost instinctively best regards adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws the unenlightened one buddhism has the characteristics of what would be tan chade meng expected in a cosmic religion for the future it singapore transcends a personal god avoids dogmas and theology cmtan iss nus sg it covers both the natural spiritual and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity einstein
alt.atheism	re where are they now your posting provoked me into checking my save file for memorable posts the first i captured was by ken arromdee on feb on the subject re atheist too that was article here your question was article which is an average of about articles a day for the last three years as others have noted the current posting rate is such that my kill file is depressing large among the posting i saved in the early days were articles from the following notables from loren sunlight llnl gov loren petrich from jchrist nazareth israel rel jesus christ of nazareth from mrc tomobiki cho cac washington edu mark crispin from perry apollo hp com jim perry from lippard uavax ccit arizona edu james j lippard from minsky media mit edu marvin minsky an interesting bunch i wonder where is geoff arnold pc nfs architect sun select geoff arnold east sun com what if they made the whole thing up the great lie by four guys two thousand years ago over wine the tear garden
alt.atheism	re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes i think that you are confusing the words objective and inherent and objective system is simply one in which an outside observer who given the postulates of the system could perfectly judge any situation or action as consistent with the system right or not wrong you seem to be objecting because the goals of the system are not inherent that is you seem to want to define an objective system as one in which the postulates themselves could be determined by some outside observer i don t think that this is a good definition of an objective system then you need to learn english really gravity is an objective system anybody can learn what it is and perform experiments they will get the same results as every other person who has performed those experiments no gravity is an inherent system you don t need any excess information other than observations to determine anything it is possible to objectively determine someone s guilt or innocence within an non inherent system i agree that morality is not necessarily inherent unless you state that everything we do has an evolutionary basis but this does not mean that it cannot be objective in theory this natural morality is not an objective system as evidenced by your comments about lions and mine perhaps it can be objective but not inherent anyway as i noted before the practices related to mating rituals etc among the animals are likely the only ones to be considered immoral under the previous definitions of the natural law therefore some revisions are in order since the class of activities surrounding mating seem to pose some general problems and in fact the only way that the postulates could be determined by an outsider would be if there were some sort of higher truth like some sort of god or something but i do not think that a god is necessary for an objective system while it seems that you do what are you trying to say here it seens that you are objecting to the notion of an objective system because perhaps you think that it would imply inherence which would necessitate some sort of grand design no i have classified behavior of most animals as in line with a moral system it is certainly possible for animals to commit acts which are outside of their rules of ethics but they don t seem to do so very often perhaps they are not intelligent enough to be immoral and perhaps it s because you have yet to define a moral system i think i have it is a code of ethics which basically defines undesired behaviors etc an immoral behavior could be unwanted unproductive or destructive etc depending on the goal of the system that is immoral to what end keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes natural morality may specifically be thought of as a code of ethics that a certain species has developed in order to survive wait are we talking about ethics or morals here is the distinction important we see this countless times in the animal kingdom and such a natural system is the basis for our own system as well huh well our moral system seems to mimic the natural one in a number of ways in order for humans to thrive we seem to need to live in groups here s your problem we seem to need what s wrong with the highlighted word i don t know what is wrong is it possible for humans to survive for a long time in the wild yes it s possible but it is difficult humans are a social animal and that is a cause of our success and in order for a group to function effectively it needs some sort of ethical code this statement is not correct isn t it why don t you think so and by pointing out that a species conduct serves to propogate itself i am not trying to give you your tautology but i am trying to show that such are examples of moral systems with a goal propogation of the species is a goal of a natural system of morality so anybody who lives in a monagamous relationship is not moral after all in order to ensure propogation of the species every man should impregnate as many women as possible no as noted earlier lack of mating such as abstinence or homosexuality isn t really destructive to the system it is a worst neutral for that matter in herds of horses only the dominate stallion mates when he dies is killed whatever the new dominate stallion is the only one who mates these seems to be a case of your natural system of morality trying to shoot itself in the figurative foot again the mating practices are something to be reexamined keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes but chimps are almost human does this mean that chimps have a moral will well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes so how do you then explain sudden violent behavior of human beings your theory would state that the more the human is detached from primitive behavior the more violent and non moralistic the human becomes please correct me if my understanding was wrong so you have this bifurcation point where a madman is killing people from the roof of a campus could you explain how your theory explains such a situation madmen are mad do we try to explain the output from a broken computer i think not keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes to show that the examples i and others have provided are not counter examples of your supposed inherent moral hypothesis you have to successfully argue that domestication removes or alters this morality i think that domestication will change behavior to a large degree domesticated animals exhibit behaviors not found in the wild i don t think that they can be viewed as good representatives of the wild animal kingdom since they have been bred for thousands of years to produce certain behaviors etc keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists mmwang adobe com michael wang writes well i have typed in the oed definitions as you will note upon reading them a punishment being an inanimate object is incapable of showing mercy so you can not say that a merciless punishment is a cruel one sorry you must have missed the stuff in parens when you read the definition where transf transferred sense and fig figurative ly things can be cruel samples of text from the first definition include because i would not see thy cruell nailes plucke out his poore old eyes and the puniness of man in the centre of a cruel and frowning universe sure nails can be cruel i d imagine nails in your eyes would be very painful but this does not imply that a painless death is cruel which is what you are supposed to be trying to show keith
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in sfnntrc wbo lruk andrew cmu edu david r sacco dsav andrew cmu edu writes after tons of mail could we move this discussion to alt religion yes mac there are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke bob dylan if you were happy every day of your life you wouldn t be a human being you d be a game show host taken from the movie heathers lecture lek chur process by which the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the minds of either michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in qjahh mrs horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article pww spac at rice edu pww spacsun rice edu peter walker writes in article qie fkt horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer wrote objective morality is morality built from objective values but where do those objective values come from how can we measure them what mediated thair interaction with the real world a moralon or a scalar valuino field science the real world has its basis in values not the other way round as you would wish it if there is no such thing as objective value then science can not objectively be said to be more useful than a kick in the head simple theories with accurate predictions could not objectively be said to be more useful than a set of tarot cards you like those conclusions i don t and how do we know they exist in the first place one assumes objective reality one doesn t know it frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon how do we measure truth beauty goodness love friendship trust honesty etc if things have no basis in objective fact then aren t we limited in what we know to be true can t we say that we can examples or instances of reason but cannot measure reason or is that semantics mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article qj gq mg horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes is good logic better than bad is good science better than bad by definition great good okay bad horrible better worse good is defined as being better than bad how do we come up with this setup is this subjective if enough people agreed we could switch the order isn t this defining one unknown thing by another that is good is that which is better than bad and bad is that which is worse than good circular mac only when the sun starts to orbit the earth will i accept the bible michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in lsran inn a exodus eng sun com emarsh hernes sun eng sun com eric marsh writes in article c hqxj jdg ux cso uiuc edu lis bw ux cso uiuc edu lis student writes hmmmm define objective morality well depends upon who you talk to some say it means you can t have your hair over your ears and others say it means stryper is acceptable i would say that general principles of objective morality would be listed in one or two places ten commandments sayings of jesus the first depends on whether you trust the bible the second depends on both whether you think jesus is god and whether you think we have accurate copies of the nt gong take a moment and look at what you just wrote first you defined an objective morality and then you qualified this objective morality with subjective justifications do you see the error in this sorry you have just disqualified yourself but please play again mac eric huh please explain is there a problem because i based my morality on something that could be wrong gosh there s a heck of a lot of stuff that i believe that could be wrong and that comes from sources that could be wrong what do you base your belief on atheism on your knowledge and reasoning couldn t that be wrong mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits
alt.atheism	re islamic genocide o k so pick former yugoslavia instead and say their problems are caused by communism it doesn t really matter but i guess religious leaders are calling for an end to that too so it can t be religiously motivated this despite the fact that the christians carve crosses in dead muslims chests maybe they just want land maybe its something else they want maybe the cross carvings are just accidental i don t know just looks suspicious most likely the tragic situation in bosnia is a combination of ethnical and religious motives where religion is just one attribute that separates the groups from each other but i must agree that the sad saga in bosnia is a terrible example of a case where religion is not helping instead it is used as a weapon against other humans and my sympathies are mostly on the bosnian side it looks like the serbs are the oppressors willing to use even christianity as a weapon against their former friends cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists the death penalty was conceived as a deterrent to crime but the legal shenanigans that have been added automatic appeals lengthy court battles etc have relegated that purpose to a very small part of what it should be hence the question is do we instate the death penalty as it was meant to be and see if that deters crime or do we get rid of it entirely i doubt the death penalty was supposed to be a deterrent to crime if so why doesn t every crime carry a death penalty that would be effictive wouldn t it the death penalty is a punishment much like a fine for speeding is a punishment anyway somebody with murder on the mind doesn t much care about the consequences i think another problem is that people dont think they will get caught if i wanted to kill another person i wouldn t care what the penalty was if i didn t think i would get caught if it was to be strictly a deterrent it should have been more along the lines of torture dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes personally i feel that since religion have such a poweful psychological effect we should let theists be but the problem is that religions cause enormous harm to non believers and to humanity as a whole holy wars inquisitions inter religious hatred impedence of science intellectual progress us them attitudes etc etc need i say more i really don t know what we can do about them any comments i have always held that there should be no attempt to change a persons attitude or lifestyle as long as it makes them happy and does not tax anybody else this seems to be ok for atheists you don t get an atheist knocking on your door stopping you in the airport or handing out literature at a social event theists seem to think that thier form of happy should work for others and try to make it so my sister is a born again and she was a real thorn in the side for my entire family for several years she finally got the clue that she couldn t help during that period she bought me i was atheist now i m xtian books for my birthday and xmas several times our birthday cards would contain verses it was a problem i told my mom that i was going to send my sister an atheist piece of reading material i got a don t you dare my mom wasn t religious why did she insist that i not send it because our society has driven into us that religion is ok to preach non religion should be self contained what a crock of shit i finally told my sister that i didn t find her way of life attractive i have seen exactly effort from her on trying to convert me since then i m sick of religious types being pampered looked out for and worst of all respected more than atheists there must be an end in sight dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com
alt.atheism	re bible quiz kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes would you mind e mailing me the questions with the pairs of answers i would love to have them for the next time a theist comes to my door i d like this too maybe you should post an answer key after a while nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu it is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life
alt.atheism	why the bible one thing i think is interesting about alt athiesm is the fact that without bible thumpers and their ilk this would be a much duller newsgroup it almost needs the deluded masses to write silly things for athiests to tear apart oh well that little tidbit aside here is what i really wanted write about how can anyone believe in such a sorry document as the bible if you want to be religious aren t there more plausable books out there seriously the bible was written by multiple authors who repeatedly contradict each other one minute it tells you to kill your kid if he talks back and the next it says not to kill at all i think that if xtians really want to follow a deity they should pick one that can be consistent unlike the last one they invented for people who say jesus was the son of god didn t god say not to ever put anyone else before him looks like you did just that didn t god say not to make any symbols or idols what are crosses then don t you think that if you do in fact believe in the bible that you are rather far off track was jesus illiterate why didn t he write anything anyone know i honestly hope that people who believe in the bible understand that it is just one of the religious texts out there and that it is one of the poorer quality ones to boot the only reason xtianity escaped the middle east is because a certain roman who s wine was poisoned with lead made all of rome xtian after a bad dream if this posting keeps one person just one person from standing on a streetcorner and telling people they are going to hell i will be happy only hatred and snap judgements can guide your robots through life dr clayton forester mad scientist
alt.atheism	re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes how many contridictions do you want to see good question if i claim something is a general trend then to disprove this i guess you d have to show that it was not a general trend no if you re going to claim something then it is up to you to prove it think cold fusion well i ve provided examples to show that the trend was general and you or others have provided some counterexamples mostly ones surrounding mating practices etc i don t think that these few cases are enough to disprove the general trend of natural morality and again the mating practices need to be reexamined try to find immoral non mating related activities so you re excluding mating related activities from your natural morality no but mating practices are a special case i ll have to think about it some more yes i think that the natural system can be objectively deduced with the goal of species propogation in mind but i am not equating the two as you so think that is an objective system isn t necessarily the natural one are you or are you not the man who wrote a natural moral system is the objective moral system that most animals follow indeed but while the natural system is objective all objective systems are not the natural one so the terms can not be equated the natural system is a subset of the objective ones now since homosexuality has been observed in most animals including birds and dolphins are you going to claim that most animals have the capacity of being immoral i don t claim that homosexuality is immoral it isn t harmful although it isn t helpful either to the mating process and when you say that homosexuality is observed in the animal kingdom don t you mean bisexuality because we can t determine to what end we should be moral are you claiming to be a group we usually implies more than one entity this is standard jargon read any textbook the we forms are used throughout well i m saying that these goals are not inherent that is why they must be postulates because there is not really a way to determine them otherwise although it could be argued that they arise from the natural goal but they are somewhat removed postulate to assume posit that s right the goals themselves aren t inherent i can create a theory with a postulate that the sun revolves around the earth that the moon is actually made of green cheese and the stars are the portions of angels that intrudes into three dimensional reality you could but such would contradict observations i can build a mathematical proof with a postulate that given the length of one side of a triangle the length of a second side of the triangle and the degree of angle connecting them i can determine the length of the third side but a postulate is something that is generally or always found to be true i don t think your postulate would be valid guess which one people are going to be more receptive to in order to assume something about your system you have to be able to show that your postulates work yes and i think the goals of survival and happiness do work you think they don t or are they not good goals keith
alt.atheism	re new member in article c hiew s portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes hello i just started reading this group today and i think i am going to be a large participant in its daily postings i liked the section of the faq about constructing logical arguments well done i am an atheist but i do not try to turn other people into atheists i only try to figure why people believe the way they do i don t much care if they have a different view than i do when it comes down to it i could be wrong i am willing to admit the possibility something religious followers dont seem to have the capability to do happy to be aboard dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com welcome i am the official keeper of the list of nicknames that people are known by on alt atheism didn t know we had such a list did you your have been awarded the nickname of buckminster so the next time you post an article sign with your nickname like so dave buckminster fuller thanks again jim humor means never having to say you re sorry copeland if god is dead and the actor plays his part sting his words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart history without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse will teach us without freedom from the past things can only get worse nothing
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article c hkv epv blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes judaism for one maddi has confirmed this for one and again i reiterate that one can easily leave the religion at any time simply by making a public declaration if one is too lazy to do that then the religion cannot be held responsible there are many islamic countries where publically renouncing islam can be quite dangerous these countries might not according to you necessarily be practicing true islam but the danger still remains one cannot blame failure to publically renounce islam on laziness as opposed to a desire to stay alive and well of course if you re planning to pull a rushdie then declaring one s leaving the religion is little to be concerned about compared to one s other plans in rushdie s case the one under discussion one can it is tragic that in some islamic countries this is so there are however islamic countries whose constitutions contains statements that islamic law is to be incorporated e g kuwait where one can freely make such statements without fear not to mention that it has already been pointed out that rushdie has said in his books that he s not a muslim and there have surely been enough readers of his books to provide the appropriate number of witnesses this story has become tiresome the conditions are clear if you care to make your point clear then make a chronology and show that he had made public statements about leaving islam prior to his writing of tsv if he did make such statements then he should have made that clear rather than trying to rejoin islam or go on talking about his personal feelings gregg
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote khomenei was a jerk and so were plenty of british leaders so what the qur an is the basis of judgement khomenei was clearly a heretic by the standards of the qur an end of story could you be a little more specific as to exactly why khomanei was a heretic and a jerk as judged by the koran i have no liking for the guy but as far as i know he has done nothing contrary to the teachings of the koran or at least so i m told by several iranian research students that i share an office with it is easy and convenient for you to denounce him but i have the feeling that your views are not as clear cut and widely accepted as you suggest i have made this clear elsewhere but will do so again khomeini put a price on the head of someone in another country this makes him a jerk as well as an international outlaw khomeini advocates the view that there was a series of twelve islamic leaders the twelve imams who are free of error or sin this makes him a heretic in the qur an muhammad is chastised for error directly by god the qur an says that muhammad is the greatest example of proper islamic behavior thus no muslim is free from error as usual there seems to be almost as many islamic viewpoints as there are muslims perhaps it seems so to you but this is hardly the case there is widespread agreement about matters of islam there certainly are many viewpoints on issues which are not particularly islamic in and of themselves but this is so for any large group of people under the same name it all comes back to the koran being so imprecise in its wording the qur an is not particularly imprecise in wording though it is true that several interpretations are possible in the interpretations of many words however as an entire text the qur an makes its meanings precise enough for intelligent people free from power lust to come to agreement about them gregg
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote well it seemed slightly incongruous to find the union jack flying at city hall in belfast may i ask why it s there not because the british want it there ni is just one big expensive problem it s there because that is what the majority of the population of ni want is there some problem with that the majority of those who can open their mouths in public perhaps there seems quite alot of incentive for the british to have control of ni like using the north channel and irish sea as a waste dump i was appalled at the dumping i saw in the harbor in belfast it is my understanding that quite alot of radioactivity enters the water it d be quite a problem if ni got its independence from britain and then stopped accepting the waste are you suggesting that british industry isn t making profit off the situation as well gregg
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote could you please explain in what way the qur an in your eyes carries the excess baggage of another era the qur an in my opinion carries no such baggage how about trying to run a modern economy without charging interest on loans from what i hear even fundamentalist iran is having to compromise this ideal which sort of loans and what have you heard exactly gregg
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article qi l jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere jon grow up childish propagandist gregg
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote and no in western countries it isn t a legal concept at all so it s not the slightest bit pertinent to the topic which is a british author living in the united kingdom under the protection of british law ah yes i keep forgetting governments are superior entities to religious organizations forgive me the gun is the higher law this is degenerating to zumder logic of course governments are superior entities they are elected by the people whereas religious leaders certainly are not perhaps not in christianity but in islam the choice of religious leaders is to be made by the people so much for your superiority argument those who the people trust to make the law obviously represents the higher law that is democracy democracy is a basic element of islam learn that one ever notice that the so called fundamentalists in algeria who are being repressed by the secular government won in free and democratic elections gregg
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes from bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine subject re free moral agency date apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes in the old testement satan is rarely mentioned if at all huh doesn t the sda bible contain the book of job this is why there is suffering in the world we are caught inthe crossfire and sometimes innocents as well as teh guilty get hurt that s my opinion and i hope i cleared up a few things seems like your omnipotent and omniscient god has got some splainin to do then or did he just create satan for shits and giggles bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea i didn t say it never mentioned satan i said it rarely if at all please excuse me for my lack of perfect memory or omnipotence tammy p s i m soory if i sound cranky i apoplogize now before anyone s feelings get hurt
alt.atheism	re note to bobby m in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes from mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough subject re note to bobby m date wed apr gmt in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in madhausc ckip h netcom com madhaus netcom com maddi hausmann writes mark how much do you really know about vegetarian diets the problem is not some b vitamins it s balancing proteins there is also one vitamin that cannot be obtained from non animal products and this is only of concern to vegans who eat no meat dairy or eggs i believe it is b and it is the only problem supplements are available for vegans yes the b does come from animal by products if you are on an ovo lacto vegetarian diet eat dairy and eggs this is not an issue i didn t see the original posting but yes i do know about vegetarian diets considering that several of my close friends are devout vegetarians and have to take vitamin supplements b was one of the ones i was thinking of it has been a long time since i read the article i once saw talking about the special dietary needs of vegetarians so i didn t quote full numbers considering how nice this place is b can also come from whole grain rice i understand some brands here in australia and other places too i m sure get the b in the b tablets from whole grain rice are you sure those aren t an enriched type i know it is basically rice and soybeans to get almost everything you need but i hadn t heard of any rice having b just thought i d contribute on a different issue from the norm you should have contributed to the programming thread earlier fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au m if one is a vegan a vegetarian taht eats no animal products at at i e eggs milk cheese etc after about years of a vegan diet you need to start taking b supplements because b is found only in animals acutally our bodies make b i think but our bodies use up our own b after or years lacto oveo vegetarians like myself still get b through milk products and eggs so we don t need supplements and if anyone knows more please post it i m nearly contridicting myself with the mish mash of knowledge i ve gleaned tammy
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes so you are saying that it isn t possible for an instinctive act to be moral one that is in order for an act to be an act of morality the person must consider the immoral action but then disregard it no i m saying that in order for an act to be moral or immoral somebody someone something must consider it to be so that implies intelligence not instinct who has to consider it the being that does the action i m still not sure i know what you are trying to say keith
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes so you are saying that it isn t possible for an instinctive act to be moral one i like to think that many things are possible explain to me how instinctive acts can be moral acts and i am happy to listen for example if it were instinctive not to murder that is in order for an act to be an act of morality the person must consider the immoral action but then disregard it weaker than that there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives so only intelligent beings can be moral even if the bahavior of other beings mimics theirs and how much emphasis do you place on intelligence animals of the same species could kill each other arbitarily but they don t are you trying to say that this isn t an act of morality because most animals aren t intelligent enough to think like we do keith
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i don t expect the lion to know or not know anything of the kind in fact i don t have any evidence that lions ever consider such issues and that of course is why i don t think you can assign moral significance to the instinctive behaviour of lions what i ve been saying is that moral behavior is likely the null behavior that is it doesn t take much work to be moral but it certainly does to be immoral in some cases also i ve said that morality is a remnant of evolution our moral system is based on concepts well practiced in the animal kingdom so you are basically saying that you think a moral is an undefinable term and that moral systems don t exist if we can t agree on a definition of these terms then how can we hope to discuss them no it s perfectly clear that i am saying that i know what a moral is in my system but that i can t speak for other people but this doesn t get us anywhere your particular beliefs are irrelevant unless you can share them or discuss them keith
alt.atheism	re was re cruel was re political atheists sdoe nmsu edu stephen doe writes of course if at some later time we think that the death penalty is cruel or unusual it will be outlawed but at the present most people don t seem to think this way this from the same fellow who speaks of an objective or natural morality i suppose that if the majority decides slavery is ok then it is no longer immoral i did not claim that our system was objective keith
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article bcc b ics uci edu bvickers ics uci edu brett j vickers writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes well seeing as you are not muslim the sort of fatwa issued by khomeini would not be relevant to you i can understand your fear of persecution and i share it even more than you being muslim however rushdie s behavior was not completely excusable why should a fatwa issued by khomeini be relevant to anyone who doesn t live in iran issued by khomeini it shouldn t be relevant to anyone but issued by an honest and learned scholar of islam it would be relevant to any muslim as it would be contrary to islamic law which all muslims are required to respect who is it that decides whether rushdie s behavior is excusable anyone sufficiently well versed in islamic law and capable of reasoning if you are talking about a weak sense of excuse it depends on what sense of excuse you have in mind and who cares if you think it is inexcusable only someone who thinks my opinion is important obviously obviously you don t care nor do i care that you don t care gregg
alt.atheism	re free moral agency and kent s in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes from sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik subject re free moral agency and kent s date thu apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy wrote ezekiel says your hart was filled with pride because of all your beauty you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor therefore i have cast you down the the ground and exposed you helpless before the curious gaze of kings for those of you who are bible scholars you knowthat the st verses refer to the prince of tyre this is a prophesy about and addressed to the human prince verses refer to the king of tyre which is a term for satan tammy what s the rationale to connect the prince of tyre with satan could you give us more rational bible cites thanks i m afraid that if this is not the case your thinking model falls apart like a house of cards but let s see cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net at the time ezekiel was written israel was in apostacy again and if i m not mistaken tyre was about to make war on israel like i said the prince of tyre was the human ruler of tyre he was a wicked man by calling satan the king of tyre ezekiel was saying that satan is the real ruler over tyre don t think my interpretation is neccessarily the orthodox christian one although most christian bible commentaries interpret the king of tyre as being a reference to satan i haven t read ezekiel throughly in a long time tammy
alt.atheism	re free moral agency and jeff clark in article bb dfc i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes from i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau subject re free moral agency and jeff clark date thu apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes deletion you also said why did millions suffer for what adam and ee did seems a pretty sick way of going about creating a universe i m gonna respond by giving a small theology lesson forgive me i used to be a theology major first of all i believe that this planet is involved in a cosmic struggle the great controversy betweed christ and satan i borrowed a book title god has to consider the interests of the entire universe when making decisions deletion an universe it has created by the way can you tell me why it is less tyrannic to let one of one s own creatures do what it likes to others by your definitions your god has created satan with full knowledge what would happen including every choice of satan can you explain us what free will is and how it goes along with omniscience didn t your god know everything that would happen even before it created the world why is it concerned about being a tyrant when noone would care if everything was fine for them that the whole idea comes from the possibility to abuse power something your god introduced according to your description by the way are you sure that you have read the faq especially the part about preaching benedikt i don t feel that i m preaching i m just trying to answer people s questions and talking about my religion my beliefs when it comes to what i post i don t do it with the intent of converting anyone i don t expect for the atheists in this newsgroup to take what i say with a grain of salt if they so wish i just state what i beleve they ask me how i believeit and why and we all go on if that s preaching then i m soory and i ll get off the soapbox tammy
alt.atheism	re pompous ass arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes look i m not the one that made those nazi comparisons other people compared what the religious people are doing now to nazi germany they have said that it started out with little things but no one really knew about any of these little things strangely enough and grew to bigger things they said that the motto is but one of the little things you just contradicted yourself the motto is one of those little things that nobody has bothered mentiopning to you huh the little things above were in reference to germany clearly people said that there were similar things in germany but no one could name any they said that these were things that everyone should know and that they weren t going to waste their time repeating them sounds to me like no one knew either i looked in some books but to no avail that is going to pave the way for other intrusions of course if the motto hasn t caused problems in its year history then i doubt it is going to it has caused problems you just ignore every instance when someone describes one to you it has caused problems again no one has shown that things were better before the motto or that they d likely be better after i don t think the motto initiates any sort of harassment harassment will occur whether or not the motto is present keith
alt.atheism	re pompous ass andrew newell tan psuvm psu edu writes i think you should support your first claim that people will simply harass me no matter what as i doubt this is true i think some of the theists will be at a loss and that is enough reason for me because in god we trust is a motto on the coins and the coins are a representation of the government christians are given ammunition here to slander atheists as unpatriotic so we should ban the ammunition why not get rid of the guns and yes i have heard this used in conversation with christians sure they may fall back on other things but this is one they should not have available to use it is worse than others the national anthem should it be changed too god bless america the list goes on imagine if the next year s set of coins were labeled with the motto god is dead certainly such a statement on u s coins would offend almost every christian and i d be tempted to rub that motto in the face of christians when debunking their standard motto slinging gets boring then you d be no better than the people you despise any statement printed on an item that represents the government is an endorsement by the government oh the coin motto is an endorsement of trusting in god an endorsement or an acknowledgement i think gods are things that people are proud of but i don t think the motto encourages belief i don t particularly feel like trusting in god so the government is putting me down with every coin it prints is it for the motto to be legitimate it would have to read in god gods or godlessness we trust would you approve of such a motto whether the motto was intended to be anti atheist or not it turns up as an open invitation to use as an anti atheist tool and removing the tool will solve the problem or will it increase the problem keith
alt.atheism	re objective morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i want to know how this omniscient being is going to perform the feat of definitely terming actions right or wrong if you were omniscient you d know who exactly did what and with what purpose in mind then with a particular goal in mind you sould be able to methodically judge whether or not this action was in accordance with the general goal i don t think you ve show the existence of any objective moral system they exist but in practice they are difficult to perfectly emulate i mean you understand the concept of an objective system right i thought you were explaining it to us i certainly don t understand what you are explaining in an objective system there are known goals then actions are judged as either being compatible with these goals or not simple the problem with most systems in current practice is that the goals differ that is the goals of each society are different note that an objective system is not necessarily an inherent one the concept of innocence is dependent on whether certain actions are right or wrong and this depends on the moral system but if we have an objective system then someone can be deemed innocent or not quite easily by an omniscient person anyway i think i cleared up the recursive definition of murder because no one is complaining about it i don t think it solves anything to speculate where we would be if we did have an objective moral system the question is still whether you can even say what one is i ve said it many many times and for what it s worth i don t think you cleared up anything concerning murder which part do you have a problem with what do you mean by harmed is it harm if you have to spend your existence metabolising food for another species oh most moral systems would be considered only within a species it is okay for us to enslave other animals right but not humans of course ideally perhaps we wouldn t even have to bother any other animals one the first point it s wrong to enslave humans according to my persoanl moral system on the second point i m a vegetarian but we can enslave the animals right but just not kill them or are you a vegetarian for health reasons so are you a vegetarian no i fail to see how my personal views are relevant anyway is it wrong to eat animals in your personal moral system of course not it seems perfectly valid to kill members of other species for food it might be nice though if the other animals were not made to suffer for instance a cow in a field lives out its life just about the same way it would in the wild they seem happy enough however the veal youngsters aren t treated very well how about an objective moral system i don t know what is the goal of this particular system there is no inherent system how about a natural moral system nope again it seems okay to kill other species for food keith
alt.atheism	re who are we to judge bobby in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes from kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan subject re who are we to judge bobby date thu apr gmt s n mozumder writes tammy r healy writes i would like to take the liberty to quote from a christian writer named ellen g white i hope that what she said will help you to edit your remarks in this group in the future do not set yourself as a standard do not make your opinions your views of duty your interpretations of scripture a criterion for others and in your heart condemn them if they do not come up to your ideal thoughts fromthe mount of blessing p point point you have taken it upon yourself to judge others when only god is the true judge only when the sun starts to orbit the earth will i accept the bible i agree totally with you amen you stated it better and in less world than i did tammy
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes from bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine subject re some thoughts keywords dan bissell date apr gmt in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself this should be good fun it s been a while since the group has had such a ripe opportunity to gut gill and fillet some poor bastard ah well off to get the popcorn bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea i hope you re not going to flame him please give him the same coutesy you ve given me tammy
alt.atheism	re who are we to judge bobby in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes from snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder subject re who are we to judge bobby date wed apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes bobby i would like to take the liberty to quote from a christian writer named ellen g white i hope that what she said will help you to edit your remarks in this group in the future do not set yourself as a standard do not make your opinions your views of duty your interpretations of scripture a criterion for others and in your heart condemn them if they do not come up to your ideal thoughts fromthe mount of blessing p i hope quoting this doesn t make the atheists gag but i think ellen white put it better than i could tammy point peace bobby mozumder my point is that you set up your views as the only way to believe saying that all eveil in this world is caused by atheism is ridiculous and counterproductive to dialogue in this newsgroups i see in your posts a spirit of condemnation of the atheists in this newsgroup bacause they don t believe exactly as you do if you re here to try to convert the atheists here you re failing miserably who wants to be in position of constantly defending themselves agaist insulting attacks like you seem to like to do i m sorry you re so blind that you didn t get the messgae in the quote everyone else has seemed to tammy
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article apr leland stanford edu rush leland stanford edu voelkerding writes if we worry about the one case in or more where an innocent man is convicted of something horrible enough to warrant the death penalty and hence put laws into place which make it virtually impossible to actually execute real criminals then the death penalty is not serving its original purpose it should either be changed or done away with i don t have numbers to back this up so take the following accordingly you use an off the cuff number of in innocent people sentenced to die as an acceptable loss for the benefit of capital punishment i d be very very surprised if the ratio were that low there have been approximately a dozen known cases of the execution of the innocent in the us since the turn of the century have we in that same period sentenced people to death accounting for those cases that we don t know the truth it seems reasonable to assume that twice that many innocent people have in fact been executed that would raise the number of death sentences metered out since to half a million for your acceptance ratio to hold i rather doubt that s the case the point of course is what is an acceptable loss in seems we re probably not doing even that well in in or should we perhaps find a better solution bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com any suggestions as to what a better solution might be i realize the off hand nature of the numbers i used and i can t answer as to what an acceptable loss rate is however as i said in another post i despise the idea of supporting criminals for life it s the economics of the situation that concern me most the money spent feeding clothing housing and taking care of people who have demonstrated that they are unfit to live in society could go to a number of places all of which i and probably others would consider far more worthwhile and which would enrish the lives of all americans give people jobs give the homeless shelter any number of things clyde little girls like butterflies don t need a reason robert heinlein
alt.atheism	re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was or he was just convinced by religious fantasies of the time that he was the messiah or he was just some rebel leader that an organisation of jews built into godhood for the purpose off throwing of the yoke of roman oppression or some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie are the moslem fanatics who strap bombs to their backs and driving into jewish embassies dying for the truth hint they think they are were the nazi soldiers in wwii dying for the truth people die for lies all the time wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people was hitler a liar how about napoleon mussolini ronald reagan we spend millions of dollars a year trying to find techniques to detect lying so the answer is no they wouldn t be able to tell if he was a liar if he only lied about some things gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people why do you think he healed people because the bible says so but if god doesn t exist the other possibility then the bible is not divinely inspired and one can t use it as a piece of evidence as it was written by unbiased observers niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example were hitler or mussolini lunatics how about genghis khan jim jones there are thousands of examples through history of people being drawn to lunatics anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing so we obviously cannot rule out liar or lunatic not to mention all the other possibilities not given in this triad some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal possibly self fulfilling prophecy ie he was aware what he should do in order to fulfil these prophecies possibly selective diting on behalf of those keepers of the holy bible for a thousand years or so before the general public had access possibly also that the text is written in such riddles like nostradamus that anything that happens can be twisted to fit the words of raving fictional prophecy and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it stuff about how hard it is to be a christian deleted i severely recommend you reconsider the reasons you are a christian they are very unconvincing to an unbiased observer jeff
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article ql ajinn kj gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes but chimps are almost human does this mean that chimps have a moral will well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior ah the verb to must i was warned about that one back in kindergarten so why must they have such laws jon
alt.atheism	re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it i know i shouldn t get involved but bit deleted the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing righto dan try this one with your cornflakes the book says that muhammad was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day mad mahdi or he was actually who he said he was some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing how his son in law made the sun stand still call me a fool but i believe he did make the sun stand still niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to the mad mahdi is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing ron house usq house helios usq edu au toowoomba australia
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article qi l jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere jon grow up childish propagandist gregg i m really sorry if having it pointed out that in practice things aren t quite the wonderful utopia you folks seem to claim them to be upsets you but exactly who is being childish here is open to question bbci was an example of an islamically owned and operated bank what will someone bet me they weren t real islamic owners and operators and yet it actually turned out to be a long running and quite ruthless operation to steal money from small and often quite naive depositors and why did these naive depositors put their life savings into bcci rather than the nasty interest motivated western bank down the street could it be that they believed an islamically owned and operated bank couldn t possibly cheat them so please don t try to con us into thinking that it will all work out right next time jon
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists in article ql sninn vm gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes so you are saying that it isn t possible for an instinctive act to be moral one i like to think that many things are possible explain to me how instinctive acts can be moral acts and i am happy to listen for example if it were instinctive not to murder then not murdering would have no moral significance since there would be nothing voluntary about it that is in order for an act to be an act of morality the person must consider the immoral action but then disregard it weaker than that there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives so only intelligent beings can be moral even if the bahavior of other beings mimics theirs you are starting to get the point mimicry is not necessarily the same as the action being imitated a parrot saying pretty polly isn t necessarily commenting on the pulchritude of polly and how much emphasis do you place on intelligence see above animals of the same species could kill each other arbitarily but they don t they do i and other posters have given you many examples of exactly this but you seem to have a very short memory are you trying to say that this isn t an act of morality because most animals aren t intelligent enough to think like we do i m saying there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives it s right there in the posting you are replying to jon
alt.atheism	re moraltiy was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes what if i act morally for no particular reason then am i moral what if morality is instinctive as in most animals saying that morality is instinctive in animals is an attempt to assume your conclusion which conclusion you conclusion correct me if i err that the behaviour which is instinctive in animals is a natural moral system see we are disagreeing on the definition of moral here earlier you said that it must be a conscious act by your definition no instinctive behavior pattern could be an act of morality you are trying to apply human terms to non humans i think that even if someone is not conscious of an alternative this does not prevent his behavior from being moral you don t think that morality is a behavior pattern what is human morality a moral action is one that is consistent with a given pattern that is we enforce a certain behavior as moral you keep getting this backwards you are trying to show that the behaviour pattern is a morality whether morality is a behavior pattern is irrelevant since there can be behavior pattern for example the motions of the planets that most all people would not call a morality i try to show it but by your definition it can t be shown and morality can be thought of a large class of princples it could be defined in terms of many things the laws of physics if you wish however it seems silly to talk of a moral planet because it obeys the laws of phyics it is less silly to talk about animals as they have at least some free will keith
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes this whole thread started because of a discussion about whether or not the death penalty constituted cruel punishment which is forbidden by the us constitution yes but they didn t say what they meant by cruel which is why a you have the supreme court and b it makes no sense to refer to the constitution which is quite silent on the meaning of the word cruel they spent quite a bit of time on the wording of the constitution they picked words whose meanings implied the intent we have already looked in the dictionary to define the word isn t this sufficient oh but we were discussing the death penalty and that discussion resulted from the one about murder which resulted from an intial discussion about objective morality so this is already three times removed from the morality discussion actually we were discussing the mening of the word cruel and the us constitution says nothing about that but we were discussing it in relation to the death penalty and the constitution need not define each of the words within anyone who doesn t know what cruel is can look in the dictionary and we did keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes no that s just what you thought the theory meant while all humans are generally capable of overpowering their instincts it does not follow that those who do this often are necessarily more intelligent ok so why aren t animals generally capable of overpowering their instincts good question i m sure some biologist could answer better than i but animals brains are just set up differently animals can be trained but if they re instincts serve them well there is no reason to contradict them keith
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists in article ql inn a gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i don t expect the lion to know or not know anything of the kind in fact i don t have any evidence that lions ever consider such issues and that of course is why i don t think you can assign moral significance to the instinctive behaviour of lions what i ve been saying is that moral behavior is likely the null behavior that is it doesn t take much work to be moral but it certainly does to be immoral in some cases that s the craziest thing i ever heard are you serious it doesn t take much work to be moral also i ve said that morality is a remnant of evolution really and that s why people discuss morality on a daily basis because it s a kind of evolutionary hangover like your little toe our moral system is based on concepts well practiced in the animal kingdom this must be some novel use of the phrase based on with which i am not sufficiently familiar what do you mean by based on and what is the significance of it for your argument so you are basically saying that you think a moral is an undefinable term and that moral systems don t exist if we can t agree on a definition of these terms then how can we hope to discuss them no it s perfectly clear that i am saying that i know what a moral is in my system but that i can t speak for other people but this doesn t get us anywhere your particular beliefs are irrelevant unless you can share them or discuss them well we can what would you like to know about my particular moral beliefs if you raise a topic i ve never considered i ll be quite happy to invent a moral belief out of thin air jon
alt.atheism	re pompous ass in article ql jiinn df gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes look i m not the one that made those nazi comparisons other people compared what the religious people are doing now to nazi germany they have said that it started out with little things but no one really knew about any of these little things strangely enough and grew to bigger things they said that the motto is but one of the little things you just contradicted yourself the motto is one of those little things that nobody has bothered mentiopning to you huh the little things above were in reference to germany clearly people said that there were similar things in germany but no one could name any they said that these were things that everyone should know and that they weren t going to waste their time repeating them sounds to me like no one knew either i looked in some books but to no avail that s not true i gave you two examples one was the rather pevasive anti semitism in german christianity well before hitler arrived the other was the system of social ranks that were used in imperail germany and austria to distinguish jews from the rest of the population neither of these were very terrible in themselves but both helped to set a psychology in which the gradual disenfranchisement of jews was made easier jon
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians excerpts from netnews alt atheism apr re thoughts on christians by dave fuller portal hq vi i m sick of religious types being pampered looked out for and worst of all respected more than atheists there must be an end in sight i think it d help if we got a couple good atheists or even some good steadfast agnostics in some high political offices when was the last time we had an openly atheist president have we ever i don t actually know these aren t rhetorical questions how bout some supreme court justices one thing that really ticked me off a while ago was an ad for a news program on a local station the promo said something like who are these cults and why do they prey on the young ahem ever hear of baptism at birth if that isn t preying on the young i don t know what is i used to be ack barf a catholic and was even confirmed shortly thereafter i decided it was a load of bs my mom who really insisted that i continue to go to church felt it was her duty to bring me up as a believer that was one of the more presumptuous things i ve heard in my life i suggested we go talk to the priest and she agreed the priest was amazingly cool about it he basically said that if i didn t believe it there was no good in forcing it on me actually i guess he wasn t amazingly cool about it his response is what you d hope for indeed expect from a human being i s pose i just didn t expect it i find it absurd that religion exists yet i can also see its usefulness to people facing up to the fact that you re just going to be worm food in a few decades and that there isn t some cosmic purpose to humanity and the universe can be pretty difficult for some people having a readily available pre digested solution to this is pretty attractive if you re either a gullible enough b willing to suspend your reasoning abilities for the piece of mind or c have had the stuff rammed down your throat for as long as you can remember religion in general provides a nice patch for some human weaknesses organized religion provides a nice way to keep a population under control blech chris chris leger sophomore carnegie mellon computer engineering remember if you don t like what somebody is saying you can always ignore them
alt.atheism	it s all mary s fault you know it just occurred to me today that this whole christian thing can be blamed solely on mary so she s married to joseph she gets knocked up what do you think ol joe will do if he finds she s been getting around so mary comes up with this ridiculous story about god making her pregnant actually it can t be all that ridiculous considering the number of people that believe it anyway she never tells anyone the truth and even tells poor little jesus that he s hot shit the son of god everyone else tells him this too since they ve bought mary s story so what does mary actually turn out to be an adultress and a liar and the cause of mankind s greatest folly just my recently minted two cents chris chris leger sophomore carnegie mellon computer engineering remember if you don t like what somebody is saying you can always ignore them
alt.atheism	re rawlins debunks creationism in article apr rambo atlanta dg com wpr atlanta dg com bill rawlins wrote we are talking about origins not merely science science cannot explain origins for a person to exclude anything but science from the issue of origins is to say that there is no higher truth than science this is a false premise says who other than a hear say god by the way i enjoy science you sure don t understand it it is truly a wonder observing god s creation macroevolution is a mixture of percent science and percent religion guaranteed within three percent error bill i hereby award you the golden shovel award for the biggist pile of bullshit i ve seen in a whils i m afraid there s not a bit of religion in macroevolution and you ve made a rather grand statement that science can not explain origins to a large extent it already has bill rawlins wpr atlanta dg com peter w walker yu shall i tell you what knowledge is when dept of space physics you know a thing say that you know it when and astronomy you do not know a thing admit you do not know rice university it this is knowledge houston tx k ung fu tzu
alt.atheism	re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian well this is alt atheism i hope you arent here to try to convert anyone it makes sense to be one many would disagree the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was well you shouldn t give any particular book too much weight actually i don t think that any of these statements is correct it is more likely that most of jesus fame was attributed to him after his death by those who had some strong motives some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone what s a prophecy and what s so significant about them i don t think most people understand what a christian is i think we understand it is certainly not what i see a lot in churches rather i think it should be a way of life and a total sacrafice of everything for god s sake well sell your computer and donate you life to your religion now don t waste any time keith
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article qkq t n horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes i ll take a wild guess and say freedom is objectively valuable i base this on the assumption that if everyone in the world were deprived utterly of their freedom so that their every act was contrary to their volition almost all would want to complain therefore i take it that to assert or believe that freedom is not very valuable when almost everyone can see that it is is every bit as absurd as to assert it is not raining on a rainy day i take this to be a candidate for an objective value and it it is a necessary condition for objective morality that objective values such as this exist you have only shown that a vast majority if not all would agree to this however there is nothing against a subjective majority in any event i must challenge your assertion i know many societies heck many us citizens willing to trade freedom for security whatever promises that have been made can than be broken john laws a man without the honor to keep his given word
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes in article apr wam umd edu west next wam umd edu writes and belief causes far more horrors crusades the emasculation and internment of native americans the killing of various tribes in south america the inquisition the counter reformation and the wars that followed the salem witch trials the european witch hunts the holy wars of the middle east the colonization destruction of africa the wars between christianity and islam post crusade the genocide biblical of the canaanites and philistines aryian invasion of india the attempted genocide of jews by nazi germany the current missionary assaults on tribes in africa i think all the horrors you mentioned are due to lack of people following religion d by lack of people following religion i also include fanatics people that don t know what they are following d so how do you know that you were right why are you trying to shove down my throat that religion causes horrors it really covers yourself something false to save yourself peace bobby mozumder i just thought of another one in the bible so it s definately not because of lack of religion the book of esther which i read the other day for other reasons describes the origin of pur im a jewish celbration of joy and peace the long and short of the story is that people were killed when people were tripping over all of the peacefull solutions lying about you couldn t swing a sacred cow without slammin into a nice peaceful solution course joshua and the jawbone of an ass spring to mind i agree with bobby this far religion as it is used to kill large numbers of people is usually not used in the form or manner that it was originally intended for that doesn t reduce the number of deaths directly caused by religion it is just a minor observation of the fact that there is almost nothing pure in the universe the very act of honestly attempting to find true meaning in religious teaching has many times inspired hatred and led to war many people have been led by religious leaders more involved in their own stomache contentsthan in any absolute truth and have therefore been driven to kill by their leaders the point is that there are many things involved in religion that often lead to war whether these things are a part of religion an unpleasant side effect or as bobby would have it the result of people switching between religion and atheism spontaneously the results are the same religious groups have long been involved in the majority of the bloodiest parts of man s history atheists on the other hand preen preen are typically not an ideological social caste nor are they driven to organize and spread their beliefs the overuse of nazism and stalinism just show how true this is two groups with very clear and specific ideologies using religious persecution to further their means anyone who cannot see the obvious namely that these were groups founded for reasons entirely their own who used religious persecution not because of any belief system but because it made them more powerfull is trying too hard basically bobby uses these examples because there are so few wars that were not specifically fought over religion that he does not have many choices well i m off to key west where the only flames are heating the bottom of little silver butter dishes ciao chris blask
alt.atheism	re objective morality was re political atheists in article ql utinn sg gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i want to know how this omniscient being is going to perform the feat of definitely terming actions right or wrong if you were omniscient you d know who exactly did what and with what purpose in mind then with a particular goal in mind you sould be able to methodically judge whether or not this action was in accordance with the general goal but now you are contradicting yourself in a pretty massive way and i don t think you ve even noticed in another part of this thread you ve been telling us that the goal of a natural morality is what animals do to survive but suppose that your omniscient being told you that the long term survival of humanity requires us to exterminate some other species either terrestrial or alien does that make it moral to do so jon
alt.atheism	re pompous ass in article ql pinn ef gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider says andrew newell tan psuvm psu edu writes sure they may fall back on other things but this is one they should not have available to use it is worse than others the national anthem should it be changed too god bless america the list goes on worse maybe not but it is definately a violation of the rules the us govt supposedly follows maybe the others should be changed to but i m not personally as concerned about the anthem since i don t come across it in daily nearly unavoidable routines every christian and i d be tempted to rub that motto in the face of christians when debunking their standard motto slinging gets boring then you d be no better than the people you despise i don t despise the people just their opinions i meant when chatting with the ones who refuse to listen to any idea other than their own then it just becomes an exercise for amusement for the motto to be legitimate it would have to read in god gods or godlessness we trust would you approve of such a motto no not unless the only way to get rid of the current one was to change it to such as that
alt.atheism	re moraltiy was re political atheists in article ql ekinn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes what if i act morally for no particular reason then am i moral what if morality is instinctive as in most animals saying that morality is instinctive in animals is an attempt to assume your conclusion which conclusion you conclusion correct me if i err that the behaviour which is instinctive in animals is a natural moral system see we are disagreeing on the definition of moral here earlier you said that it must be a conscious act by your definition no instinctive behavior pattern could be an act of morality you are trying to apply human terms to non humans pardon me i am trying to apply human terms to non humans i think there must be some confusion here i m the guy who is saying that if animal behaviour is instinctive then it does not have any moral sugnificance how does refusing to apply human terms to animals get turned into applying human terms i think that even if someone is not conscious of an alternative this does not prevent his behavior from being moral i m sure you do think this if you say so how about trying to convince me you don t think that morality is a behavior pattern what is human morality a moral action is one that is consistent with a given pattern that is we enforce a certain behavior as moral you keep getting this backwards you are trying to show that the behaviour pattern is a morality whether morality is a behavior pattern is irrelevant since there can be behavior pattern for example the motions of the planets that most all people would not call a morality i try to show it but by your definition it can t be shown i ve offered four times i think to accept your definition if you allow me to ascribe moral significence to the orbital motion of the planets and morality can be thought of a large class of princples it could be defined in terms of many things the laws of physics if you wish however it seems silly to talk of a moral planet because it obeys the laws of phyics it is less silly to talk about animals as they have at least some free will ah the law of silly and less silly what mr livesey finds intuitive is silly but what mr schneider finds intuitive is less silly now that s a devastating argument isn t it jon
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article bcc b ics uci edu bvickers ics uci edu brett j vickers writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes well seeing as you are not muslim the sort of fatwa issued by khomeini would not be relevant to you i can understand your fear of persecution and i share it even more than you being muslim however rushdie s behavior was not completely excusable as much as i considered some of the so called islam related dialogue here a total waste of time i somehow can t restrain myself in this instance so gregg try this p s t i come to my senses and accept the all knowing wisdom and power of the quran and allah not only that but allah himself drops by to congratulate me on my wise choice allah rolls a few bones and we get down then allah gets out the crisco bends over and invites me to take a spin around the block wow p s t i realize that maybe allah is looking for more of a commitment than i m ready for so i say man i ve got some programming to do gotta go i ll call you p s t thinking it over i renounce islam btw gregg allah said he still thinks of you jim
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article bafa d i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes yes but fortunately religions have been replaced by systems that value human rights higher secular laws seem to value criminal life more than the victims life islam places the rights of society and every member in it above the rights of the individual this is what i call true human rights by the way do you actually support the claim of precedence of islamic law in case you do what about the laws of other religions as a muslim living in a non muslim land i am bound by the laws of the land i live in but i do not disregard islamic law it still remains a part of my life if the laws of a land conflict with my religion to such an extent that i am prevented from being allowed to practise my religion then i must leave the land so in a way islamic law does take precendence over secular law but we are instructed to follow the laws of the land that we live in too in an islamic state one ruled by a khaliphate religions other than islam are allowed to rule by their own religious laws provided they don t affect the genral population and don t come into direct conflict with state laws dhimmis non muslim population are exempt from most islamic laws on religion such as fighting in a jihad giving zakat alms giving etc but are given the benefit of these two acts such as military protection and if they are poor they will receive zakat if not what has it got to do with rushdie and has anyone reliable information if he hadn t left islam according to islamic law or is the burden of proof on him benedikt after the fatwa didn t rushdie re affirm his faith in islam didn t he go thru a very public conversion to islam if so he is binding himself to islamic laws he has to publicly renounce in his belief in islam so the burden is on him mas c i t i z e n c a d e n c e d e s i g n s y s t e m s inc masud ahmed khan mas cadence com all my opinions
alt.atheism	re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes oh this all sounds so nice everyone helping each other and always smiling and fluffy bunnies everywhere wake up people are just not like that it seems evident from history that no society has succeeded when it had to rely upon the goodwill and unselfishness of the people isn t it obvious from places like iran that even if there are only a few greedy people in society then they are going to be attracted to positions of power sounds like a recipe for disaster leonard e mail l newnham bradford ac uk leonard i ll give you an example of this my father recently bought a business the business price was pounds and my father approached the people in the community for help he raised pounds in interest free loans from friends and relatives and muslims he knew had cash and the rest he got a business loan after paying off the muslim lenders many of them helped him with further loans to help him clear the bank debt and save him from further intrest this is an example of a muslim community helping one another why did they help because of their common identity as muslims in turn my father has helped with people buying houses to minimise the amount of intrest they pay and in some cases buy houses intrest free with the help of those more fortunate in the community the fact is leonard it does work without a fluffy bunny in sight ithat is the beauty of islam mas c i t i z e n c a d e n c e d e s i g n s y s t e m s inc masud ahmed khan mas cadence com all my opinions
alt.atheism	re pompous ass andrew newell tan psuvm psu edu writes sure they may fall back on other things but this is one they should not have available to use it is worse than others worse maybe not but it is definately a violation of the rules the us govt supposedly follows oh for the motto to be legitimate it would have to read in god gods or godlessness we trust would you approve of such a motto no not unless the only way to get rid of the current one was to change it to such as that what is wrong with this motto now if you wouldn t approve of even that one i am beginning to think that you just have something against mottos in general what do you think of e plurbis unum keith
alt.atheism	re pompous ass livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes the little things above were in reference to germany clearly people said that there were similar things in germany but no one could name any that s not true i gave you two examples one was the rather pevasive anti semitism in german christianity well before hitler arrived the other was the system of social ranks that were used in imperail germany and austria to distinguish jews from the rest of the population these don t seem like little things to me at least they are orders worse than the motto do you think that the motto is a little thing that will lead to worse things keith
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes explain to me how instinctive acts can be moral acts and i am happy to listen for example if it were instinctive not to murder then not murdering would have no moral significance since there would be nothing voluntary about it see there you go again saying that a moral act is only significant if it is voluntary why do you think this and anyway humans have the ability to disregard some of their instincts so only intelligent beings can be moral even if the bahavior of other beings mimics theirs you are starting to get the point mimicry is not necessarily the same as the action being imitated a parrot saying pretty polly isn t necessarily commenting on the pulchritude of polly you are attaching too many things to the term moral i think let s try this is it good that animals of the same species don t kill each other or do you think this is right or do you think that animals are machines and that nothing they do is either right nor wrong animals of the same species could kill each other arbitarily but they don t they do i and other posters have given you many examples of exactly this but you seem to have a very short memory those weren t arbitrary killings they were slayings related to some sort of mating ritual or whatnot are you trying to say that this isn t an act of morality because most animals aren t intelligent enough to think like we do i m saying there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives it s right there in the posting you are replying to yes it was but i still don t understand your distinctions what do you mean by consider can a small child be moral how about a gorilla a dolphin a platypus where is the line drawn does the being need to be self aware what do you call the mechanism which seems to prevent animals of the same species from arbitrarily killing each other don t you find the fact that they don t at all significant keith
alt.atheism	re objective morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in another part of this thread you ve been telling us that the goal of a natural morality is what animals do to survive that s right humans have gone somewhat beyond this though perhaps our goal is one of self actualization but suppose that your omniscient being told you that the long term survival of humanity requires us to exterminate some other species either terrestrial or alien now you are letting an omniscient being give information to me this was not part of the original premise does that make it moral to do so which type of morality are you talking about in a natural sense it is not at all immoral to harm another species as long as it doesn t adversely affect your own i guess keith
alt.atheism	re new member jcopelan nyx cs du edu the one and only writes welcome i am the official keeper of the list of nicknames that people are known by on alt atheism didn t know we had such a list did you your have been awarded the nickname of buckminster so the next time you post an article sign with your nickname like so dave buckminster fuller thanks again jim humor means never having to say you re sorry copeland of course the list has to agree with the nickname laws laid down by the gipu almost years ago you know the of them that were written on the iron tablets that melted once and had to be reinscribed since i am a prophet of the gipu i decree that you should post the whole list of nicknames for the frequent posters here nanci
alt.atheism	re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior so why must they have such laws the quotation marks should enclose laws not must if there were no such rules even instinctive ones or unwritten ones etc then surely some sort of random chance would lead a chimp society into chaos keith
alt.atheism	re pompous ass in article qlef inn dn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes the little things above were in reference to germany clearly people said that there were similar things in germany but no one could name any that s not true i gave you two examples one was the rather pevasive anti semitism in german christianity well before hitler arrived the other was the system of social ranks that were used in imperail germany and austria to distinguish jews from the rest of the population these don t seem like little things to me at least they are orders worse than the motto do you think that the motto is a little thing that will lead to worse things you don t think these are little things because with twenty twenty hindsight you know what they led to jon
alt.atheism	re objective morality was re political atheists in article qlf ginn sn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in another part of this thread you ve been telling us that the goal of a natural morality is what animals do to survive that s right humans have gone somewhat beyond this though perhaps our goal is one of self actualization humans have gone somewhat beyond what exactly in one thread you re telling us that natural morality is what animals do to survive and in this thread you are claiming that an omniscient being can definitely say what is right and what is wrong so what does this omniscient being use for a criterion the long term survival of the human species or what how does omniscient map into definitely being able to assign right and wrong to actions but suppose that your omniscient being told you that the long term survival of humanity requires us to exterminate some other species either terrestrial or alien now you are letting an omniscient being give information to me this was not part of the original premise well your original premises have a habit of changing over time so perhaps you d like to review it for us and tell us what the difference is between an omniscient being be able to assign right and wrong to actions and telling us the result is does that make it moral to do so which type of morality are you talking about in a natural sense it is not at all immoral to harm another species as long as it doesn t adversely affect your own i guess i m talking about the morality introduced by you which was going to be implemented by this omniscient being that can definitely assign right and wrong to actions you tell us what type of morality that is jon
alt.atheism	re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage in article apr cadence com mas cadence com masud khan writes leonard i ll give you an example of this my father recently bought a business the business price was pounds and my father approached the people in the community for help he raised pounds in interest free loans from friends and relatives and muslims he knew had cash and the rest he got a business loan after paying off the muslim lenders many of them helped him with further loans to help him clear the bank debt and save him from further intrest this is an example of a muslim community helping one another why did they help because of their common identity as muslims in turn my father has helped with people buying houses to minimise the amount of intrest they pay and in some cases buy houses intrest free with the help of those more fortunate in the community sorry wrong this is how banks got started in the first place sooner or later your father and his pals will lend money to someone who eventually goes broke and then they will realise that they havn t been managing risk very well then they will ask themselves what it is that they need to quantify risk and to persuade borrowers not to take on greater loans than they can carry and since they don t all want the worry of doing the calculations and handling the money some of them will specialise in that then they ll reinvent interest but like good muslims they ll call it something else the fact is leonard it does work without a fluffy bunny in sight ithat is the beauty of islam riiiight that s why john major opened a new government department a couple of months ago to help to promote minority business because they can do it all themselves by lending one another cups of sugar jon
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists in article qlettinn oi gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes explain to me how instinctive acts can be moral acts and i am happy to listen for example if it were instinctive not to murder then not murdering would have no moral significance since there would be nothing voluntary about it see there you go again saying that a moral act is only significant if it is voluntary why do you think this if you force me to do something am i morally responsible for it and anyway humans have the ability to disregard some of their instincts well make up your mind is it to be instinctive not to murder or not so only intelligent beings can be moral even if the bahavior of other beings mimics theirs you are starting to get the point mimicry is not necessarily the same as the action being imitated a parrot saying pretty polly isn t necessarily commenting on the pulchritude of polly you are attaching too many things to the term moral i think let s try this is it good that animals of the same species don t kill each other or do you think this is right it s not even correct animals of the same species do kill one another or do you think that animals are machines and that nothing they do is either right nor wrong sigh i wonder how many times we have been round this loop i think that instinctive bahaviour has no moral significance i am quite prepared to believe that higher animals such as primates have the beginnings of a moral sense since they seem to exhibit self awareness animals of the same species could kill each other arbitarily but they don t they do i and other posters have given you many examples of exactly this but you seem to have a very short memory those weren t arbitrary killings they were slayings related to some sort of mating ritual or whatnot so what are you trying to say that some killing in animals has a moral significance and some does not is this your natural morality are you trying to say that this isn t an act of morality because most animals aren t intelligent enough to think like we do i m saying there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives it s right there in the posting you are replying to yes it was but i still don t understand your distinctions what do you mean by consider can a small child be moral how about a gorilla a dolphin a platypus where is the line drawn does the being need to be self aware are you blind what do you think that this sentence means there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives what would that imply what do you call the mechanism which seems to prevent animals of the same species from arbitrarily killing each other don t you find the fact that they don t at all significant i find the fact that they do to be significant jon
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article c jxru t news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes what do you base your belief on atheism on your knowledge and reasoning couldn t that be wrong actually my atheism is based on ignorance ignorance of the existence of any god don t fall into the atheists don t believe because of their pride mistake bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article qi l jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere grow up childish propagandist gosh gregg i m pretty good a reading between the lines but you ve given me precious little to work with in this refutation could you maybe flesh it out just a bit or did i miss the full grandeur of it s content by virtue of my blinding atheism bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re morality was re political atheists in article ql inn a gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes what i ve been saying is that moral behavior is likely the null behavior do i smell sig material here bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists in article ql mdinn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes but we were discussing it in relation to the death penalty and the constitution need not define each of the words within anyone who doesn t know what cruel is can look in the dictionary and we did or with no dictionary available they could gain first hand knowledge by suffering through one of your posts bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re pompous ass in article ql jiinn df gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes the little things above were in reference to germany clearly people said that there were similar things in germany but no one could name any they said that these were things that everyone should know and that they weren t going to waste their time repeating them sounds to me like no one knew either i looked in some books but to no avail if the anne frank exhibit makes it to your small little world take an afternoon to go see it bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians in article ofnwyg wb voa andrew cmu edu pl u andrew cmu edu patrick c leger writes ever hear of baptism at birth if that isn t preying on the young i don t know what is no that s praying on the young preying on the young comes later when the bright eyed little altar boy finds out what the priest really wears under that chasible bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article qlfd inn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior so why must they have such laws the quotation marks should enclose laws not must oh your highness and exactly why should the quotation marks enclose laws not must in case you didn t notice it s the function of the must that i wish to ironicise if there were no such rules even instinctive ones or unwritten ones etc then surely some sort of random chance would lead a chimp society into chaos perhaps the chimps that failed to evolve cooperative behaviour died out and we are left with the ones that did evolve such behaviour entirely by chance are you going to proclaim a natural morality every time an organism evolves cooperative behaviour what about the natural morality of bee dance jon
alt.atheism	re objective morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes humans have gone somewhat beyond what exactly in one thread you re telling us that natural morality is what animals do to survive and in this thread you are claiming that an omniscient being can definitely say what is right and what is wrong so what does this omniscient being use for a criterion the long term survival of the human species or what well that s the question isn t it the goals are probably not all that obvious we can set up a few goals like happiness and liberty and the golden rule etc but these goals aren t inherent they have to be defined before an objective system is possible how does omniscient map into definitely being able to assign right and wrong to actions it is not too difficult one you have goals in mind and absolute knoweldge of everyone s intent etc now you are letting an omniscient being give information to me this was not part of the original premise well your original premises have a habit of changing over time so perhaps you d like to review it for us and tell us what the difference is between an omniscient being be able to assign right and wrong to actions and telling us the result is omniscience is fine as long as information is not given away isn t this the resolution of the free will problem an interactive omniscient being changes the situation which type of morality are you talking about in a natural sense it is not at all immoral to harm another species as long as it doesn t adversely affect your own i guess i m talking about the morality introduced by you which was going to be implemented by this omniscient being that can definitely assign right and wrong to actions you tell us what type of morality that is well i was speaking about an objective system in general i didn t mention a specific goal which would be necessary to determine the morality of an action keith
alt.atheism	islam is caused by believing was re genocide is caused by theism in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes i m only saying that anything can happen under atheism being a beleiver a knowledgeable one in religion only good can happen this is becoming a tiresome statement coming from you it is a definition not an assertion islam is good belief in islam is good therefore being a believer in islam can produce only good because islam is good blah blah blah that s about as circular as it gets and equally meaningless to say that something produces only good because it is only good that it produces is nothing more than an unapplied definition and all you re application is saying that it s true if you really believe it s true that s silly conversely you say off handedly that anything can happen under atheism again just an offshoot of believe it and it becomes true don t believe it and it doesn t like other religions i m aquainted with islam teaches exclusion and caste and suggests harsh penalties for behaviors that have no logical call for punishment certain limits on speech and sex for example to me this is not good i see much pain and suffering without any justification except for the waving of the hand of some inaccessible god by the by you toss around the word knowledgable a bit carelessly for what is a knowledgeable believer except a contradiction of terms i infer that you mean believer in terms of having faith and if you need knowledge to believe then faith has nothing to do with it does it jim halat
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes he d have to be precise about is rejection of god and his leaving islam one is perfectly free to be muslim and to doubt and question the existence of god so long as one does not reject god i am sure that rushdie has be now made his atheism clear in front of a sufficient number of proper witnesses the question in regard to the legal issue is his status at the time the crime was committed i d have to say that i have a problem with any organization religious or not where the idea that simple speech such as this is the basis for a crime jim halat
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article ursa bear com halat pooh bears jim halat writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes he d have to be precise about is rejection of god and his leaving islam one is perfectly free to be muslim and to doubt and question the existence of god so long as one does not reject god i am sure that rushdie has be now made his atheism clear in front of a sufficient number of proper witnesses the question in regard to the legal issue is his status at the time the crime was committed i ll also add that it is impossible to actually tell when one rejects god therefore you choose to punish only those who talk about it jim halat
alt.atheism	re a silly question on x tianity in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes sorry to insult your homestate but coming from where i do wisconsin is very backwards i was never able to understand that people actually held such bigoted and backwards views until i came here i have never been to wisconsin though i have been to neighbor minnesota being a child of the middle atlantic ny nj pa i found that there were few states in the provences that stood out in this youngster s mind california texas and florida to name the most obvious three however both minnesota and wisconsin stuck out solely on the basis of their politics both have always translated to extremely liberal and progressive states and my recent trip to minnestoa last summer served to support that state s reputation my guess is that wisconsin is probably the same at least that was the impression the people of minnesota left with me about their neighbors the only question in my head about wisconsin though is whether or not there is a cause effect relationship between cheese and serial killers jim halat
alt.atheism	re the nonexistance of atheists date apr edt from kmagnacca eagle wesleyan edu in article bskendigc jcwx jzn netcom com bskendig netcom com brian kendig writes s c a quotes deleted it really looks like these people have no idea at all of what it means to be atheist there are more bobby mozumder clones in the world than i thought well that explains some things i posted on soc religion islam with an attached quote by bobby to the effect that all atheists are lying evil scum and asked if it was a commonly held idea among muslims i got no response asking about the unknown i guess you should have tried one of the soc culture groups in the middle east or south asia area they are a little more open than the islam channel i think someone defined atheists as polytheists cuz they say we think the world created itself or something like that so each particle is a god which created the other gods the soc culture african is also nice for some contrasting viewpoints on the benevolence of religion especially when sudan is mentioned
alt.atheism	keith is a relativist in article pigidinnsot gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes not so if you are thrown into a cage with a tiger and get mauled do you blame the tiger aha he admits it he is a moral relativist keith if you start wafffling on about how it is different for a human to maul someone thrown into it s cage so to speak you d better start posting tome decent evidence or retract your i think there is an absolute morality blurb a few weeks ago keith the desert brat john j mcvey elc eltnc eng whyalla uni s australia f levels unisa edu au t s a k c darwin o for replies mail to whjjm wh whyalla unisa edu au disclaimer unisa hates my opinions bb bb it doesn t make a rainbow any less beautiful that we god s name is smack understand the refractive mechanisms that chance to for some produce it jim perry perry dsinc com alice in chains
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes i hope you re not going to flame him please give him the same coutesy you ve given me tammy if a person gives a well balanced reasoned argument tammy then all are happy to discuss it with him if he makes astounding claims which are not backed up with any evidence then he must be expected to substantiate them if the original author had said that everything was his own opinion and not supportable then people would have simply ignored him he did not he claimed many things and his logic was seriously flawed his argument was for christianity in an effort to try to convince atheists like myself to believe him and his message i for one will not take things as read if you told me that pink fluffy elephants did the dance of the sugar plum fairy on the dark side of jupiter then i would demand evidence adda adda wainwright does dim atal y llanw o eczcaw mips nott ac uk o mae sig ma ar werth
alt.atheism	re objective values v scientific accuracy was re after years can we say that christian morality is in article c j jzv dcs ed ac uk tk dcs ed ac uk tommy kelly wrote in article qjahh mrs horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes science the real world has its basis in values not the other way round as you would wish it you must be using values to mean something different from the way i see it used normally and you are certainly using science like that if you equate it to the real world science is the recognition of patterns in our perceptions of the universe and the making of qualitative and quantitative predictions concerning those perceptions science is the process of modeling the real world based on commonly agreed interpretations of our observations perceptions it has nothing to do with values as far as i can see values are well they are what i value they are what i would have rather than not have what i would experience rather than not and so on values can also refer to meaning for example in computer science the value of is true and is false science is based on commonly agreed values interpretation of observations although science can result in a reinterpretation of these values objective values are a set of values which the proposer believes are applicable to everyone the values underlaying science are not objective since they have never been fully agreed and the change with time the values of newtonian physic are certainly different to those of quantum mechanics steve lang slang sling slink slick slack shack shank thank think thick
alt.atheism	victims of various good fight s in article tekig pen tek com naren tekig pen tek com naren bala writes list of killings in the name of religion iran iraq war civil war in sudan riots in india pakistan in massacares in bangladesh in inquistions in america in s x million x crusades massacre of jews in wwii million massacre of other inferior races in wwii million communist purges million socialism is more or less a religion catholics v protestants quite a few i d imagine recent goings on in bombay iodia sp area disease introduced to brazilian oher s am tribes x million naren the desert brat john j mcvey elc eltnc eng whyalla uni s australia f levels unisa edu au t s a k c darwin o for replies mail to whjjm wh whyalla unisa edu au disclaimer unisa hates my opinions bb bb it doesn t make a rainbow any less beautiful that we god s name is smack understand the refractive mechanisms that chance to for some produce it jim perry perry dsinc com alice in chains
alt.atheism	re keith schneider stealth poster in article pa f innpit gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes but really are you threatened by the motto or by the people that use it every time somone writes something and says it is merely describing the norm it is infact re inforcing that norm upon those programmed not to think for themselves the motto is dangerous in itself it tells the world that every true american is god fearing and puts down those who do not fear gods it doesn t need anyone to make it dangerous it does a good job itself by just existing on your currency keith the desert brat john j mcvey elc eltnc eng whyalla uni s australia f levels unisa edu au t s a k c darwin o for replies mail to whjjm wh whyalla unisa edu au disclaimer unisa hates my opinions bb bb it doesn t make a rainbow any less beautiful that we god s name is smack understand the refractive mechanisms that chance to for some produce it jim perry perry dsinc com alice in chains
alt.atheism	re it s all mary s fault pl u andrew cmu edu patrick c leger writes you know it just occurred to me today that this whole christian thing can be blamed solely on mary so she s married to joseph she gets knocked up what do you think ol joe will do if he finds she s been getting around so mary comes up with this ridiculous story about god making her pregnant nice attempt chris verrry close you missed the conspiracy by step joseph knew who knocked her up he couldn t let it be known that somebody else got ol mary prego that wouldn t do well for his popularity in the local circles so what happened is that she was feeling guilty he was feeling embarrassed and they decided to improve both of their images on what could have otherwise been the downfall for both clever indeed come to think of it i have gained a new respect for the couple maybe joseph and mary should receive all of the praise being paid to jesus dave buckminster fuller how is that one o keeper of the nicknames
alt.atheism	re origins of the bible adda wainwright writes he stated that thousands of bibles were discovered at a certain point in time which were syllable perfect this therefore meant that there must have been one copy at a certain time the time quoted by my acquaintance was approximately years after the death of jesus this is as far as i know complete nonsense the codification of the bible as we have it now came very much later c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie i apologize for the long delay in getting a response to this posted i ve been working reduced hours the past couple of weeks because i had a son born the day after umar s article was posted btw i did respond within a couple of days but it turns out that a a coincidental news software rearrangement caused postings from this site to silently disappear rather than going out into the world this is a revision of that original response in article c q ct ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes in article ps finnm u dsi dsinc com perry dsinc com jim perry writes only a functional illiterate with absolutely no conception of the nature of the novel could think such a thing this was in response to the claim that rushdie made false statements about the life of mohammed with the disclaimer fiction i know but where is the line between fact and fiction i stand by this distinction between fiction and false statements however it s not for his writing in the satanic verses but for what people have accepted as a propagandistic version of what is contained in that book i have yet to find one single muslim who has convinced me that they have read the book some have initially claimed to have done so but none has shown more knowledge of the book than a superficial newsweek story might impart and all have made factual misstatements about events in the book you keep saying things like this then you accuse people like me of making ad hominem arguments i repeat as i have said in previous postings on aa i have read tsv from cover to cover i had not seen that claim or i might have been less sweeping you have made what i consider factual misstatements about events in the book which i have raised in the past in the islam a clearer view thread as well as the root of the yet more rushdie re islamic law thread my statement was not that you had not read the book but that you had not convinced me that you inter alia had as i said before if you want to defend your position then produce evidence and respond to the evidence i have posted so far you have not of course my statement was not directly aimed at you but broadly at a number of muslim posters who have repeated propaganda about the book indicating that they haven t read it and narrowly at gregg jaeger who subsequently admitted that he hadn t in fact read the book vindicating my skepticism in at least that one case so far the only things i have to go on regarding your own case are a the statements you made concerning the book in the a clearer view posting which i have challenged not interpretation but statements of fact for instance rushdie depicts the women of the most respected family in all of islam as whores and b your claim which i had not seen before this that you have indeed read it cover to cover i am willing to try to resolve this down to a disagreement on critical interpretation but you ll have to support your end by responding to my criticism i have no doubt as to the ability of a particular muslim to go through this book with a highlighter finding passages to take personal offense at but you have upheld the view that tsv is intended as an attack on islam and upon muslims this view must be defended by more than mere assertion if you want anyone to take it seriously i am trying very hard to be amicable and rational and i appreciate it but welcome to the club i am defending my honest opinion that this book should not be construed as a calculated or otherwise insulting attack on islam and the parallel opinion that most of the criticism of the book i have seen is baseless propaganda i have supported my statements and critical interpretationa with in context quotes from the book and rushdie s essays which is more than my correspondents have done of course you are more than welcome to do so jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics chris faehl writes many atheists do not mock the concept of a god they are shocked that so many theists have fallen to such a low level that they actually believe in a god you accuse all atheists of being part of a conspiracy again without evidence rule condescending to the population at large i e theists will not win many people to your faith anytime soon it only ruins your credibility fallacy atheism is a faith lo i hear the faq beckoning once again wonderful rule deleted you re correct you didn t say anything about a conspiracy correction hard atheism is a faith rule don t mix apples with oranges how can you say that the extermination by the mongols was worse than stalin khan conquered people unsympathetic to his cause that was atrocious but stalin killed millions of his own people who loved and worshipped him and his atheist state how can anyone be worse than that i will not explain this to you again stalin did nothing in the name of atheism whethe he was or was not an atheist is irrelevant get a grip man the stalin example was brought up not as an indictment of atheism but merely as another example of how people will kill others under any name that s fit for the occasion rule if you rely on evidence state it we re waiting as opposed to relying on a bunch of black ink on some crumbling old paper atheism has to prove nothing to you or anyone else it is the burden of dogmatic religious bullshit to provide their evidence which we might you be referring to and how long are you going to wait so hard atheism has nothing to prove then how does it justify that god does not exist i know there s the faq etc but guess what if those justifications were so compelling why aren t people flocking to hard atheism they re not and they won t i for one will discourage people from hard atheism by pointing out those very sources as reliable statements on hard atheism second what makes you think i m defending any given religion i m merely recognizing hard atheism for what it is a faith and yes by we i am referring to every reader of the post where is the evidence that the poster stated that he relied upon oh yes though i m not a theist i can say safely that by definition many theists are not arrogant since they boast about something outside themselves namely a god or gods so in principle it s hard to see how theists are necessarily arrogant because they say such and such is absolutely unalterably true because my dogma says it is true i am not prepared to issue blanket statements indicting all theists of arrogance as you are wont to do with atheists bzzt by virtue of your innocent little pronoun they you ve just issued a blanket statement at least i will apologize by qualifying my original statement with hard atheist in place of atheist would you call john the baptist arrogant who boasted of one greater than he that s what many christians do today how is that in itself arrogant i m not worthy only seriously misinformed with your sophisticated put down of they the theists your serious misinformation shines through bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was re genocide is caused by atheism in bb c i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes and it is he god almighty who created the night and the day and the sun and the earth all the celetial bodies swim along each in its rounded course holy quran hmm this agrees with the ptolemic system of the earth at the centre with the planets orbitting round it so copernicus and gallileo were wrong after all you haven t read very carefully if you look again you will see that it doesn t say anything about what is circling what anyway they are not moving in circles oops sorry my words not the words of the qur an nor is there any evidence that everything goes around in a rounded course in a general sense wishy washy statements are not scientific note that the celestial bodies in the above verse is an interpolation which is why it is in brackets it is the translator s incorrect imho interpretation here is maurice bucaille s translation he studied arabic for his research into the qur an and science of this verse god is the one who created the night the day the sun and the moon each is travelling in an orbit with its own motion qur an the positive aspect of this verse noted by dr maurice bucaille is that while geocentrism was the commonly accepted notion at the time and for a long time afterwards there is no notion of geocentrism in this verse or anywhere in the qur an fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was re genocide is caused by atheism in cindy apr solan solan unit no cindy solan solan unit no cynthia kandolf writes various quotes deleted in the interest of saving a little bit of bandwidth but i will copy the koran quote and it is he god almighty who created the night and the day and the sun and the earth all the celetial bodies swim along each in its rounded course holy quran as it has been pointed out this quote makes no claim about what orbits what the idea that something orbited something had been held as true for many years before the koran was written so the fact that it says something orbits something is hardly surprising insight my concern is with the word rounded there are two interpretations of this word it means in a circle this is wrong although many believed it to be true at the time the koran was written in other words it is not describing our neighborhood of the universe as it really exists but as it was thought to be at the time this has implications which i hope are obvious to everyone it means in a rounded shape which could include elipses the geometrical form which most nearly describes the orbits of the planets this is also not a great insight look at the shapes you see in nature very few of them even approach a square or rectangle those are human created shapes everything in nature is rounded to some degree even the flat earthers don t try to claim earth is a rectangle children who draw imaginary animals seldom give them rectangular bodies we seem to instinctively recognize that nature produces rounded shapes hence the assumption that the orbits of the planets would be round hardly takes divine inspiration it is good to remember that every translation is to some extent an interpretation so as you point out below one must really go back to the original arabic regarding the verses relevant to nature i prefer to use dr maurice bucaille s translations in his book the bible the qur an and science for in general his translations are more literal maurice bucaille translates the portion of the verse you are addressing as each one is travelling with an orbit in its own motion also note that the celestial bodies in the first translation quoted by you above is the translator s interpolation it is not existent in the original arabic which is why it is included in brackets perhaps someone who can read the original arabic can eliminate one of these interpretations at any rate neither one of them is exactly impressive you re right what the verses do contain isn t all that remarkable however dr bucaille a surgeon that s how he s a dr thinks it is significant that the above verse contains no geocentric ideas even though geocentrism was all the rage up until the th century or so and this goes for the rest of the qur an as well which has about verses or so regarding nature i think i remember reading once fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior i disagree with these what society thinks should be irrelevant what the individual decides is all that is important who is society i think this is fairly obvious how do they define what is acceptable generally by what they feel is right which is the most idiotic policy i can think of how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position by thinking for ourselves mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits
alt.atheism	re origins of the bible in article apr cs nott ac uk eczcaw mips nott ac uk a wainwright writes hi i have been having an argument about the origins of the bible lately with a theist acquaintance he stated that thousands of bibles were discovered at a certain point in time which were syllable perfect this therefore meant that there must have been one copy at a certain time the time quoted by my acquaintace was approximately years after the death of jesus hi adda most bible scholars agree that there was one copy of each book at a certain time the time when the author wrote it unfortunately like all works from this time period and earlier all that exists today are copies cutting all of the crap out of the way ie god wrote it could anyone answer the following how old is the oldest surviving copy of the new testament there are parts of books scraps really that date from around the mid second century a d there are some complete books letters etc from the middle third century the first complete collection of the new testament dates from the early th century a d throughout this period are writings of various early church fathers leaders who quoted various scriptures in their writings is there any truth in my acquaintance s statements if you mean that someone discovered thousands of bibles which were all perfect copies dating from the last part of the st century no if you mean that there are thousands of early manuscripts within the dates given above but not letter perfect and that the most probable text can be reconstructed from these documents and that the earliest original autographs now lost probably were written starting sometime shortly after a d then yes from who where did the bible originate from the original authors we call them matthew mark luke john peter paul james and one other not identified how long is a piece of string as long as you make it adda regards jim b
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics james hogan writes timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes jim hogan quips summary of jim s stuff jim i m afraid you ve missed the point thus i think you ll have to admit that atheists have a lot more up their sleeve than you might have suspected nah i will encourage people to learn about atheism to see how little atheists have up their sleeves whatever i might have suspected is actually quite meager if you want i ll send them your address to learn less about your faith faith yeah do you expect people to read the faq etc and actually accept hard atheism no you need a little leap of faith jimmy your logic runs out of steam fine but why do these people shoot themselves in the foot and mock the idea of a god i hope you understand now yes jim i do understand now thank you for providing some healthy sarcasm that would have dispelled any sympathies i would have had for your faith bake real glad you detected the sarcasm angle but am really bummin that i won t be getting any of your sympathy still if your inclined to have sympathy for somebody s faith you might try one of the religion newsgroups just be careful over there though make believe i m whispering in your ear here they re all delusional jim sorry i can t pity you jim and i m sorry that you have these feelings of denial about the faith you need to get by oh well just pretend that it will all end happily ever after anyway maybe if you start a new newsgroup alt atheist hard you won t be bummin so much good job jim bye bake more slim jim tm deleted bye bake bye bye bye bye big jim don t forget your flintstone s chewables bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky
alt.atheism	studies on book of mormon hi i don t know much about mormons and i want to know about serious independent studies about the book of mormon i don t buy the official story about the gold original taken to heaven but haven t read the book of mormon by myself i have to much work learning biblical hebrew i will appreciate any comment about the results of study in style vocabulary place names internal consistency and so on for example there is evidence for one writer or multiple writers there are some mention about events places or historical persons later discovered by archeologist yours in collen andres grino brandt casilla santiago agrino enkidu mic cl chile no hay mas realidad que la realidad y la razon es su profeta
alt.atheism	re gulf war and peace niks in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes wait a minute you said never play a chamberlain since the us is playing chamberlain as far as east timor is concerned wouldn t that lead you to think that your argument is irrelevant and had nothing to do with the gulf war actually i rather like your idea perhaps the rest of the world should have bombed or maybe missiled washington when the us invaded nicaragua grenada panama vietnam mexico hawaii or any number of other places wait a minute doug i know you are better informed than that the us has never invaded nicaragua as far as i know we liberated grenada from the cubans to protect us citizens there and to prevent the completion of a strategic air strip panama we invaded true twice this century vietnam we were invited in by the government of s vietnam i guess we invaded saudi arabia during the gulf war eh mexico we have invaded mexico or times once this century but there were no missiles for anyone to shoot over here at that time hawaii we liberated it from spain so if you mean by the word invaded some sort of military action where we cross someone s border you are right out of but normally invaded carries a connotation of attacking an autonomous nation if some nation invades the u s virgin islands would they be invading the virgin islands or the u s so from this point of view your score falls to out of mexico panama what s a peace nik is that somebody who doesn t masturbate over guns n ammo or what is it supposed to be bad to be a peace nik no it s someone who believes in peace at all costs in other words a person who would have supported giving hitler not only austria and czechoslakia but poland too if it could have averted the war and one who would allow hitler to wipe all all jews slavs and political dissidents in areas he controlled as long as he left the rest of us alone is it supposed to be bad to be a peace nik you ask well it depends on what your values are if you value life over liberty peace over freedom then i guess not but if liberty and freedom mean more to you than life itself if you d rather die fighting for liberty than live under a tyrant s heel then yes it s bad to be a peace nik the problem with most peace niks it they consider those of us who are not like them to be bad and unconscionable i would not have any argument or problem with a peace nik if they held to their ideals and stayed out of all conflicts or issues especially those dealing with the national defense but no they are not willing to allow us to legitimately hold a different point of view they militate and many times resort to violence all in the name of peace what rank hypocrisy all to stop we warmongers who are willing to stand up and defend our freedoms against tyrants and who realize that to do so requires a strong national defense time to get off the soapbox now doug graham dgraham bnr ca my opinions are my own regards jim b
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics nancyo fraser sfu ca nancy patricia o connor writes timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes rule don t mix apples with oranges how can you say that the extermination by the mongols was worse than stalin khan conquered people unsympathetic to his cause that was atrocious but stalin killed millions of his own people who loved and worshipped him and his atheist state how can anyone be worse than that you re right and david koresh claimed to be a christian yup i can hear the millions cheering for dk right now josef stalin eat your heart out bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky
alt.atheism	he has risen our lord and savior david keresh has risen he has been seen alive spread the word my sole intention was learning to fly
alt.atheism	re idle questions for fellow atheists acooper mac cc macalstr edu wrote i wonder how many atheists out there care to speculate on the face of the world if atheists were the majority rather than the minority group of the population i ve been thinking about this every now and then since i cut my ties with christianity it is surprising to note that a large majority of people at least in finland seem to be apatheists even though of the population are members of the lutheran church of finland religious people are actually a minority could it be possible that many people believe in god just in case it seems people do not want to seek the truth they fall prey to pascal s wager or other poor arguments a small minority of those who do believe reads the bible regularly the majority doesn t care it believes but doesn t know what or how people don t usually allow their beliefs to change their lifestyle they only want to keep the virtual gate open a christian would say that they are not born in the spirit but this does not disturb them religion is not something to think about i m afraid a society with a true atheist majority is an impossible dream religions have a strong appeal to people nevertheless a promise of life after death is something humans eagerly listen to coupled with threats of eternal torture and the idea that our morality is under constant scrutiny of some cosmic cop too many people take the poison with a smile or just pretend to swallow and unconsciously hope god wouldn t notice also how many atheists out there would actually take the stance and accor a higher value to their way of thinking over the theistic way of thinking the typical selfish argument would be that both lines of thinking evolved from the same inherent motivation so one is not intrinsically different from the other qualitatively but then again a measuring stick must be drawn somewhere and if we cannot assign value to a system of beliefs at its core than the only other alternative is to apply it to its periphery ie how it expresses its own selfishness if logic and reason are valued then i would claim that atheistic thinking is of higher value than the theistic exposition theists make unnecessary assumptions they believe in i ve yet to see good reasons to believe in gods or to take a leap of faith at all a revelation would do however why do we value logic and reasoning this questions bears some resemblance to a long disputed problem in science why mathematics works strong deep structuralists like atkins have proposed that perhaps after all everything is mathematics is usefulness any criterion petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in article c r at asv news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in qvabj g j horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes am i making a wrong assumption for the basis of morals where do they come from the question came from the idea that i heard that morals come from whatever is societally mandated it s only one aspect of morality societal morality is necessarily very crude and broad brush stuff which attempts to deal with what is necessary to keep that society going and often it s a little over enthusiastic about doing so individual morality is a different thing it often includes societal mores or society is in trouble but is stronger for example some people are vegetarian though eating meat may be perfectly legal merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior who is society depends on the society doesn t help is the point irrelevant no often the answer is we are but if society is those who make the rules that s a different question if society is who should make the rules that s yet another i don t claim to have the answers either but i don t think we do it very well in ireland and i like some things about the us system at least in principle how do they define what is acceptable depends on again this comes from a certain question see above well ideally they don t but if they must they should do it by consensus imo how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position by adopting a default position that people s moral decisions are none of society s business so how can we put people in jail how can we condemn other societies because sometimes that s necessary the hard trick is to recognise when it is and equally importantly when it isn t and only interfering when it s truly necessary why would it be necessary what right do we have to interfere imo it isn t often that interference i e jail and force of various kinds and degrees is both necessary and effective where you derive the right to interfere is a difficult question it s a sort of liar s paradox force is necessary for freedom one possible justification is that people who wish to take away freedom shouldn t object if their own freedom is taken away the paradox doesn t arise if we don t actively wish to take way anyone s freedom the introduction of permissible interference causes the problem that it can be either too much or too little but most people seem to agree that some level of interference is necessary they see the need for a justice system how can we even define that term only by consensus i guess thus you get a situation where the law often allows what honour forbids which i ve come to believe is as it should be i admit i don t understand that statement what i mean is that while thus and such may be legal thus and such may also be seen as immoral the law lets you do it but you don t let yourself do it eating meat for example frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re islamic genocide in p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes date apr gmt from frank o dwyer frank d s uucp in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes just borrowing your post mr rice in p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes are you sure that democracy is the driving force behind the massacres in east timor it is certainly odd that so many of the worlds massacres occur along religious lines independently of any claims to a democratic form of government are ireland and northern ireland considered democracies would you attribute their problems to democracy even though they are democracies which motivates them more religion or democracy mr rice was pointing out a fallacy in the assertion that islam is evil because some of those who claim to follow it are evil not asserting that democracy causes massacres as i read it that is right he was and i was pointing out that his use of indonesians killing the east timorese as a result of democracy was a bit weak because democracy is not much of a motivation for doing much of anything in indonesia from what i remember east timor was a former portguese territory which was forcibly annexed by indonesia last i heard over indonesians have died trying to keep east timor a part of indonesia being a former portuguese colony there is a strong catholic influence in east timor as i recall so it seems a bit odd that yet again we have another war being fought between people who just happen to have different religions purely coincidental i guess but then the real motivation is to get the vote out and make democracy work in indonesia i pointed out the secession movement in aceh which has also been brutally dealt with in the past by the indonesian government the harshly with all secessionist movements the evidence it appears to me that the indonesian government has dealt very harshly with all secession movements i know that the head of the indonesian armed forces for a very long time was benny murdani a christian indonesia has been heavy handed in east timor for a long time even when murdani was head of the armed forces the people who make up the indonesian government are in general motivated by national interests not religious ones fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics robert knowles writes my my there are a few atheists with time on their hands ok first i apologize i didn t bother reading the faq first and so fired an imprecise flame that was inexcusable how about the nickname bake flamethrower timmons sure but robert koresh fetesh sic knowles seems good too you weren t at the koresh compound around noon today by any chance were you remember koresh dried for your sins and pass that beef jerky umm umm though i wasn t there at least i can rely on you now to keep me posted on what what he s doing have you any other fetishes besides those for beef jerky and david koresh bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article c prca news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb says in vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article c l ey jts news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes if i m wrong god is free at any time to correct my mistake that he continues not to do so while supposedly proclaiming his undying love for my eternal soul speaks volumes what are the volumes that it speaks besides the fact that he leaves your choices up to you leaves the choices up to us but gives us no better reason to believe than an odd story of his alleged son getting killed for us and little new in the past few thousand years leaving us with only the texts passed down through centuries of meddling with the meaning and even wording most of this passing down and interpretation of course coming from those who have a vested interest in not allowing the possibility that it might not be the ultimate truth what about maybe talking to us directly eh he s a big god right he ought to be able to make time for the creations he loves so much at least enough to give us each a few words of direct conversation what he s too busy to get around to all of us or maybe a few unquestionably miraculous works here and there speaks volumes upon volumes to me that i ve never gotten a chance to meet the guy and chat with him
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war in article f rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article e rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes yes fortunately we have right thinking folks like your good self in power and it was therefore deemed acceptable to slaughter tens or even hundreds o thousands of iraqis in order to liberate oil h h hkuwait we won the war hurrah hurrah the number of civilian iraqi deaths were way over exaggerated and exploited for anti war emotionalism by the liberal news media the facts are that less iraqis died in the gulf war than did civilians in any other war of comparable size this century let s analyze this claim a little how is the size of a war defined by number of participants geographical area number of countries involved number of casualties size of armies duration numbers of casualties both absolute and as a percentage of those involved geographical area and numbers of countries too are all measures of size in this case i d say the relevant statistic would be the number of combatants total troops compared to total casualties from among the total civilian population in the affected geographical area which other comparable wars are we talking about vietnam and korea might make good comparisons which liberal news media are we talking about western news in general but in particular the american mass media cbs nbc abc etc the general tone of the news during the whole war was one of those poor poor iraqis along with look how precisely this cruise missile blew this building to bits this was due mostly to the short duration coupled with precise surgical bombing techniques which were technically possible only recently i suspect that medical advances may have something to do with it too i agree how about all the innocent people who died in blanket bombing in ww i don t hear you bemoaning them perhaps because the topic hasn t cropped up if you want my opinion i think that the blanket bombing of german cities at the end of world war two was the most appalling act of wholesale slaughter this country has committed in centuries bomber harris was no hero of mine perhaps so and maybe the atomic bomb was a mistake too but that s easy to say from our enlightened viewpoint here in the s right back then it was all out war and germany and japan had to be squashed after all a million or more british had already died hundreds of thousands of french a couple hundread thousand or so americans and millions of russians not to mention a few million jews poles and other people of slavic descent in german concentration camps all things considered the fire bombings and the atomic bomb were essential and therefore justified in bringing the war to a quick end to avoid even greater allied losses i for one don t regret it war is never an exact science but with smart bombs it s becoming more exact with a smaller percentage of civilian casualties sometimes mistakes are made targets are misidentified innocents die that s war the way it really is entrenched political rulers operating in their own selfish interests without regard for the lives of other people that is the way war really is sure and it s the people who suffer because of them all the more reason to depose these entrenched political rulers operating in their own selfish interests or do you mean that this applies to the allies as well why all the fuss about kuwait and not east timor bosnia or even tibet if iraq is so bad why were we still selling them stuff a couple of weeks before we started bombing i make no claim or effort to justify the misguided foreign policy of the west before the war it is evident that the west especially america misjudged hussein drastically but once hussein invaded kuwait and threatened to militarily corner a significant portion of the world s oil supply he had to be stopped sure the war could have been prevented by judicious and concerted effort on the part of the west before hussein invaded kuwait but it is still hussein who is responsible for his decision to invade and once he did so a strong response from the west was required mathew your sarcasm is noted but you are completely off base here you come off sounding like a complete peace nik idiot although i feel sure that was not your intent what s your intent to sound like a loving christian well you aren t doing a very good job of it well it s not very loving to allow a hussein or a hitler to gobble up nearby countries and keep them or to allow them to continue with mass slaughter of certain peoples under their dominion so i d have to say yes stopping hussein was the most loving thing to do for the most people involved once he set his mind on military conquest so the iraqi war was wrong eh i m sure that appeasement would have worked better than war just like it did in ww eh who even mentioned appeasement and what makes you think the situation is even remotely analogous to world war two i mentioned it if we hadn t intervened allowing hussein to keep kuwait then it would have been appeasement it is precisely the lessons the world learned in ww that motivated the western alliance to war letting hitler take austria and czechoslavkia did not stop ww from happening and letting hussein keep kuwait would not have stopped an eventual gulf war to protect saudi arabia i guess we shouldn t have fought ww either just think of all those innocent german civilians killed in dresden and hamburg yes do germans are human too you know sure what was truly unfortunate was that they followed hitler in his grandiose quest for a thousand year reich the consequences stemmed from that tyrants like hussein have to be stopped his kind don t understand diplomacy they only understand the point of a gun my only regret is that bush wimped out and didn t have the military roll into baghdad so now hussein is still in power and the iraqi people s sacrifice not to mention the americans who died was for naught i look forward to hearing your incisive comments about east timor and tibet what should i say about them anything in particular and as for poor poor rodney king did you ever stop and think why the jury in the first trial brought back a verdict of not guilty yes amongst the things i thought were hmm there s an awful lot of white people in that jury so it was the policemen on trial not rodney king and under american law they deserved a jury of their peers if there had been black officers involved i m sure their would have been black jurors too this point of allegedly racial motivations is really shallow those who have been foaming at the mouth for the blood of those policemen certainly have looked no further than the video tape but the jury looked at all the evidence evidence which you and i have not seen when i see a bunch of policemen beating someone who s lying defenceless on the ground it s rather hard to imagine what this other evidence might have been so it s hard to imagine so when has argument from incredulity gained acceptance from the revered author of constructing a logical argument can we expect another revision soon just kidding if there is some wonderful evidence why is it seemingly being kept secret why not tell everyone what it is then everyone could say oh yes you re right king deserved a good beating and we could all live happily ever after i have to admit that i wonder this too but neither the prosecution nor the defense is talking so one cannot conclude either way due to the silence of the principals law in this country is intended to protect the rights of the accused whether they be criminals or cops one is not found guilty if there is a reasonable doubt of one s guilt and only the jury is in a position to assess the evidence and render a verdict fine but i m still finding it hard to imagine what the reasonable doubt was in this case i mean the cops certainly seem to be beating someone who s lying defenceless on the ground what s your explanation mass hallucination orbital mind control lasers faked video footage do tell ok it certainly seemed to me that there was excessive force involved and frankly the original not guilty verdict baffled me too but then i learned that the prosecution in the first case did not try to convict on a charge of excessive force or simple assault which they probably would have won they tried to get a conviction on a charge of aggravated assault with intent to inflict serious bodily harm a charge which news commentators said was akin to attempted murder under california law based on what the prosecution was asking for it s evident that the first jury decided that the officers were not guilty note not not guilty of doing wrong but not guilty of aggravated assault with the intent of inflicting serious bodily harm the seeds of the prosecutions defeat were in their own overconfidence in obtaining a verdict such that they went for the most extreme charge they could if the facts as the news commentators presented them are true then i feel the not guilty verdict was a reasonable one mathew thou shalt not kill unless thou hast a pretty good reason for killing in which case thou shalt kill and also kill anyone who gets in the way as unfortunately it cannot be helped jim brown bible for loving christians thanks mathew i like the quote pretty funny actually i m a monty python fan you know kind of seems in that vein of course oversimplifying any moral argument can make it seem contradictory but then you know that already regards jim b loving christian
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c pxqs lm darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner says dean kaflowitz decay cbnewsj cb att com wrote now what i am interested in is the original notion you were discussing on moral free agency that is how can a god punish a person for not believing in him when that person is only following his or her nature and it is not possible for that person to deny what his or her reason tells him or her which is that there is no god i think you re letting atheist mythology confuse you on the issue of webster myth a traditional or legendary story a belief whose truth is accepted uncritically how does that qualify indeed it s almost oxymoronic a rather amusing instance i ve found that most atheists hold almost no atheist views as accepted uncritically especially the few that are legend many are trying to explain basic truths as myths do but they don t meet the other criterions also divine justice according to the most fundamental doctrines of christianity when the first man sinned he was at that time the you accuse him of referencing mythology then you procede to launch your own xtian mythology this time meeting all the requirements of myth salvation the idea of punishment is based on the proposition that everyone knows instinctively that god exists is their creator and ah but not everyone knows that god exists so you have a fallacy there s nothing terribly difficult in all this and is well known to any reasonably biblically literate christian the only controversy is and that makes it true holding with the bible rules out controversy read the faq if you ve read it you missed something so re read not a bad suggestion for anyone i re read it just before this with those who pretend not to know what is being said and what it means when atheists claim that they do not know if god exists and don t know what he wants they contradict the bible which clearly says that everyone knows the authority of the bible is its claim to be should i repeat what i wrote above for the sake of getting it across you may trust the bible but your trusting it doesn t make it any more credible to me if the bible says that everyone knows that s clearly reason to doubt the bible because not everyone knows your alleged god s alleged existance refuted while the species wide condemnation is justified those that claim that there is no evidence for the existence of god or that his will is unknown must deliberately ignore the bible the ignorance itself is no excuse no they don t have to ignore the bible the bible is far from universally accepted the bible is not a proof of god it is only a proof that some people have thought that there was a god or does it prove even that they might have been writing it as series of fiction short stories as in the case of dionetics assuming the writers believed it the only thing it could possibly prove is that they believed it and that s ignoring the problem of whether or not all the interpretations and biblical philosophers were correct there are people who have truly never heard of the bible again read the faq freedom you are free to ignore god in the same way you are free to ignore gravity and the consequences are inevitable and well known in both cases that an atheist can t accept the evidence means only bzzt wrong answer gravity is directly there it doesn t stop exerting a direct and rationally undeniable influence if you ignore it god on the other hand doesn t generally show up in the supermarket except on the tabloids god doesn t exert a rationally undeniable influence gravity is obvious gods aren t secondly human reason is very comforatble with the concept of god so much so that it is in itself intrinsic to our nature human reason always comes back to the question of god in every generation and in no human reason hasn t always come back to the existance of god it has usually come back to the existance of god in other words it doesn t generally come back to the xtian god it comes back to whether there is any god and in much of oriental philosophic history it generally doesn t pop up as the idea of a god so much as the question of what natural forces are and which ones are out there from a world wide view human nature just makes us wonder how the universe came to be and or what force s are currently in control a natural tendancy to believe in god only exists in religious wishful thinking i said all this to make the point that christianity is eminently reasonable that divine justice is just and human nature is much different than what atheists think it is whether you agree or not xtianity is no more reasonable than most other religions and it s reasonableness certainly doesn t merit eminence divine justice well it only seems just to those who already believe in the divinity first not all atheists believe the same things about human nature second whether most atheists are correct or not you certainly are not correct on human nature you are at the least basing your views on a completely eurocentric approach try looking at the outside world as well when you attempt to sum up all of humanity andrew
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by theism evidence in article qibo f o horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in the absence of some convincing evidence that theist fanatics are more dangerous than atheist fanatics i ll continue to be wary of fanatics of any stripe i think that the agnostic fanatics are the most dangerous of the lot fair point actually i mentioned theists and atheists but left out agnostics mea culpa no wonder in the light of that you are a probably a theist who tries to pass as an agnostic i still remember your post about your daughter singing chrismas carols and your feelings of it well by the way would you show marginal honesty and answer the many questions you left open when you ceased to respond last time benedikt
alt.atheism	re islamic genocide in article qi b ec horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes deletion few people can imagine dying for capitalism a few more can imagine dying for democracy but a lot more will die for their lord and savior jesus christ who died on the cross for their sins motivation pure and simple got any cites for this nonsense how many people will die for mom patriotism freedom money their kids fast cars and swimming pools a night with kim basinger or mel gibson and which of these things are evil read a history book fred and tell me why so many religions command to commit genocide when it has got nothing to do with religion or why so many religions say that not living up to the standards of the religion is worse than dieing coincidence i assume or ist part of the absolute morality you describe so often theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes irrational belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism benedikt
alt.atheism	re where are they now in article ql d vo dr pepper east sun com geoff east sun com geoff arnold sun bos r h coast near the top writes your posting provoked me into checking my save file for memorable posts the first i captured was by ken arromdee on feb on the subject re atheist too that was article here your question was article which is an average of about articles a day for the last three years as others have noted the current posting rate is such that my kill file is depressing large among the posting i saved in the early days were articles from the following notables hey it might to interesting to read some of these posts especially from ones who still regularly posts on alt atheism from loren sunlight llnl gov loren petrich from jchrist nazareth israel rel jesus christ of nazareth from mrc tomobiki cho cac washington edu mark crispin from perry apollo hp com jim perry from lippard uavax ccit arizona edu james j lippard from minsky media mit edu marvin minsky an interesting bunch i wonder where is hee hee hee i ain t going to say whatever promises that have been made can than be broken john laws a man without the honor to keep his given word
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists in article ql mdinn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes this whole thread started because of a discussion about whether or not the death penalty constituted cruel punishment which is forbidden by the us constitution yes but they didn t say what they meant by cruel which is why a you have the supreme court and b it makes no sense to refer to the constitution which is quite silent on the meaning of the word cruel they spent quite a bit of time on the wording of the constitution they picked words whose meanings implied the intent we have already looked in the dictionary to define the word isn t this sufficient we only need to ask the question what did the founding fathers consider cruel and unusual punishment hanging hanging there slowing being strangled would be very painful both physically and psychologicall i imagine firing squad note not a clean way to die back in those days etc all would be considered cruel under your definition all were allowed under the constitution by the founding fathers whatever promises that have been made can than be broken john laws a man without the honor to keep his given word
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article ql ajinn kj gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior why must whatever promises that have been made can than be broken john laws a man without the honor to keep his given word
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes the arguements he uses i am summing up the book is about whether jesus was god or not i know many of you don t believe but listen to a different perspective for we all have something to gain by listening to what others have to say read the faq first watch the list fr some weeks and come back then and read some other books on the matter in order to broaden your view first benedikt
alt.atheism	re who says the apostles were tortured in article qiu innpq srvr engin umich edu ingles engin umich edu ray ingles writes as evidence for the resurrection it is often claimed that the disciples were tortured to death for their beliefs and still did not renounce their claim that jesus had come back from the dead now i skimmed acts and such and i found a reference to this happening to stephen but no others where does this apparently very widely held belief come from is there any evidence outside the bible is there any evidence in the bible i sure haven t found any early authors and legends the most important sources can be found in the martyriologia of the catholic church makes the grimms look like exact science benedikt
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article qlfd inn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior so why must they have such laws the quotation marks should enclose laws not must if there were no such rules even instinctive ones or unwritten ones etc then surely some sort of random chance would lead a chimp society into chaos the system refered to a moral system you havn t shown any reason that chimps must have a moral system except if you would like to redefine everything whatever promises that have been made can than be broken john laws a man without the honor to keep his given word
alt.atheism	re where are they now in article ql d vo dr pepper east sun com geoff east sun com writes your posting provoked me into checking my save file for memorable posts the first i captured was by ken arromdee on feb on the subject re atheist too that was article here your question was article which is an average of about articles a day for the last three years as others have noted the current posting rate is such that my kill file is depressing large among the posting i saved in the early days were articles from the following notables from loren sunlight llnl gov loren petrich from jchrist nazareth israel rel jesus christ of nazareth from mrc tomobiki cho cac washington edu mark crispin from perry apollo hp com jim perry from lippard uavax ccit arizona edu james j lippard from minsky media mit edu marvin minsky an interesting bunch i wonder where is didn t you hear his address has changed he can be reached at the following address dkoresh branch davidian compound waco tx us i think he was last seen posting to alt messianic jim if god is dead and the actor plays his part sting his words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart history without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse will teach us without freedom from the past things can only get worse nothing
alt.atheism	re free moral agency are you saying that their was a physical adam and eve and that all humans are direct decendents of only these two human beings then who were cain and able s wives couldn t be their sisters because a e didn t have daughters were they non humans genesis and the days of adam after he begat seth were eight hundred years and he begat sons and daughters felicitations chris ho stuart
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long in article x rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article f rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes which liberal news media are we talking about western news in general but in particular the american mass media cbs nbc abc etc the general tone of the news during the whole war was one of those poor poor iraqis along with look how precisely this cruise missile blew this building to bits most odd over here there was very little about the suffering of the iraqi civilians until towards the end of the war and then it was confined to the few remaining quality newspapers true at first the news media seemed entranced by all the new gizmos the military was using not to mention the taped video transmissions from the missiles as they zeroed in on their targets but later and especially after the bunker full of civilians was hit they changed their tone it seemed to me that they didn t have the stomach for the reality of war that innocent people really do die and are maimed in warfare it s like they were only pro gulf war as long as it was nice and clean smart missiles dropping in on military hqs but not when pictures of dead dying and maimed civilians started cropping up what naive hypocrites how about all the innocent people who died in blanket bombing in ww i don t hear you bemoaning them discussion about blanket bombing and a bombs deleted all things considered the fire bombings and the atomic bomb were essential and therefore justified in bringing the war to a quick end to avoid even greater allied losses i should have said here militarily justified it seems from your comments below that you understood this as meaning morally justified i apologize what about the evidence that america knew japan was about to surrender after hiroshima but before nagasaki is that another lie peddled by the liberal media conspiracy i have often wondered about this i ve always thought that the first bomb should have been dropped on japan s island fortress of truk a good inpenatrable military target the second bomb could ve been held back for use on an industrial center if need be but i digress yes i have heard that we found evidence after the war btw that japan was seriously considering surrender after the first bomb unfortunately the military junta won out over the moderates and rejected the us s ulimatum therefore the second bomb was dropped most unfortunate imo i for one don t regret it nuke a jap for jesus i don t regret the fact that sometimes military decisions have to be made which affect the lives of innocent people but i do regret the circumstances which make those decisions necessary and i regret the suffering caused by those decisions why all the fuss about kuwait and not east timor bosnia or even tibet if iraq is so bad why were we still selling them stuff a couple of weeks before we started bombing i make no claim or effort to justify the misguided foreign policy of the west before the war it is evident that the west especially america misjudged hussein drastically but once hussein invaded kuwait and threatened to militarily corner a significant portion of the world s oil supply he had to be stopped oh i see so we can overlook his using chemical weapons on thousands of people but if he threatens your right to drive a huge gas guzzling car well the man s gotta go actually it was the fact that both situations existed that prompted us and allied action if some back water country took over some other back water country we probably wouldn t intervene not that we don t care but we can t be the world s policman or if a coup had occured in kuwait instead of an invasion then we still wouldn t have acted because there would not have been the imminent danger perceived to saudi arabia but the combination of the two an unprovoked invasion by a genocidal tyrant and the potential danger to the west s oil interests caused us to take action i ve moved a paragraph from here to later on if we hadn t intervened allowing hussein to keep kuwait then it would have been appeasement right but did you ever hear anyone advocate such a course of action or are you just setting up a strawman i m not setting up a strawman at all if you want to argue against the war then the only logical alternative was to allow hussein to keep kuwait diplomatic alternatives including sanctions were ineffective i guess we shouldn t have fought ww either just think of all those innocent german civilians killed in dresden and hamburg yes do germans are human too you know sure what was truly unfortunate was that they followed hitler in his grandiose quest for a thousand year reich the consequences stemmed from that translation they were asking for it well in a sense yes they probably had no idea of what end hitler would lead their nation to but what about those who didn t support hitler s dreams of conquest it s not as if they democratically voted for all his policies the nsdap got in the elections of and that was the last chance the german people got to vote on the matter they suffered along with the rest why does this bother you so much the world is full of evil and circumstances are not perfect many innocents suffer due to the wrongful actions of others it it regretable but that s the way it is there are no perfect solutions i look forward to hearing your incisive comments about east timor and tibet what should i say about them anything in particular the people of east timor are still being killed by a dictatorship that invaded their country hell even western journalists have been killed all this was happening before the gulf war why didn t we send in the bombers to east timor why aren t we sending in the bombers now probably because we re not the saviors of the world we can t police each and every country that decides to self destruct or invade another nor are we in a strategic position to get relief to tibet east timor or some other places here s that paragraph i moved what s your intent to sound like a loving christian well you aren t doing a very good job of it well it s not very loving to allow a hussein or a hitler to gobble up nearby countries and keep them or to allow them to continue with mass slaughter of certain peoples under their dominion so i d have to say yes stopping hussein was the most loving thing to do for the most people involved once he set his mind on military conquest the chinese government has a policy of mandatory abortion and sterilization of tibetans tibetan people are rounded up tortured and executed amnesty international recently reported that torture is still widespread in china why aren t we stopping them in fact why are we actively sucking up to them by trading freely with them tell me how we could stop them and i ll support it i for one do not agree with the present us policy of sucking up to them as you put it i agree that it is deplorable and as for poor poor rodney king did you ever stop and think why the jury in the first trial brought back a verdict of not guilty yes amongst the things i thought were hmm there s an awful lot of white people in that jury so it was the policemen on trial not rodney king erm surely it s irrelevant who s on trial juries are supposed to represent a cross section of the population are they or are they supposed to reflect the population of the locale where the trial is held normally this is where the crime is committed unless one party or the other can convince the judge a change of venue is in order i m not an expert on california law or even us law but it seems that this is the way the system is set up you can criticize the system but let s not have unfounded allegations of racial prejudice thrown around and under american law they deserved a jury of their peers you are saying that black people are not the peers of white people no not at all the point is that the fact that there were no blacks on the first jury and that rodney king is black is totally irrelevant this point of allegedly racial motivations is really shallow this idea of people only being tried before a jury of people just like them is really stupid should the nuremburg trials have had a jury entirely made up of nazis germans perhaps peers doesn t mean those who do the same thing like having murderers judge murderers it means having people from the same station in life presumably because they are in a better position to understand the defendent s motivation s those who have been foaming at the mouth for the blood of those policemen certainly have looked no further than the video tape but the jury looked at all the evidence evidence which you and i have not seen when i see a bunch of policemen beating someone who s lying defenceless on the ground it s rather hard to imagine what this other evidence might have been so it s hard to imagine so when has argument from incredulity gained acceptance from the revered author of constructing a logical argument we re not talking about a logical argument we re talking about a court of law as the faq points out some fallacious arguments are not viewed as fallacies in a court of law ok granted however you are using this reasoning as part of your logical argument in this discussion this is not a court of law if the facts as the news commentators presented them are true then i feel the not guilty verdict was a reasonable one were you not talking earlier about the bias of the liberal media conspiracy the media is not totally monolithic even though there is a prevailing liberal bias programs such as the macneil lehrer news hour try to give a balanced and fair reporting of the news there are even conservative sources out there if you know where to look hurrah for rush btw i never used the word conspiracy i don t accept without far more evidence theories that there is some all pervading liberal conspiracy attempting to take over all news sources thou shalt not kill unless thou hast a pretty good reason for killing in which case thou shalt kill and also kill anyone who gets in the way as unfortunately it cannot be helped jim brown bible for loving christians thanks mathew i like the quote pretty funny actually i m a monty python fan you know kind of seems in that vein of course oversimplifying any moral argument can make it seem contradictory but then you know that already ha ha only serious i an atheist am arguing against killing innocent people you a supposed christian are arguing that it s ok to kill innocent people so long as you get some guilty ones as well hardly i didn t say that it s a good thing tm to kill innocent people if the end is just unfortunately we don t live in a perfect world and there are no perfect solutions if one is going to resist tyranny then innocent people on both sides are going to suffer and die i didn t say it is ok it is unfortunate but sometimes necessary i a moral relativist am arguing that saturation bombing of german cities at the end of world war ii was as far as i can see an evil and unnecessary act i would agree that it was evil in the sense that it caused much pain and suffering i m not so sure that it was unnecessary as you say that conclusion can only be arrived at by evaluating all the factors involved and perhaps it was unnecessary as let s say we now know that doesn t mean that those who had to make the decision to bomb didn t see it as being necessary rarely can one have full known of the consequences of an action before making a decision at the time it may have seemed necessary enough to go ahead with it but don t assume that i feel the bombing was morally justified i don t i just don t condemn those who had to make a difficult decision under difficult circumstances you having criticised moral relativism in the past are now arguing that i am in no position to judge the morality of allied actions at the end of the war you certainly are not in such a position if you are a moral relativist i as an absolutist am in a position to judge but i defer judgment you are arguing that the actions need to be assessed in the particular context of the time and that they might have been moral then but not moral now wrong they were neither moral then nor now they seemed necessary to those making the decisions to bring a quick end to the war i simply refuse to condemn them for their decision where s your christian love where s your absolute morality oh how quick you are to discard them when it suits you as ivan stang would say jesus would puke one day i will stand before jesus and give account of every word and action even this discourse in this forum i understand the full ramifications of that and i am prepared to do so i don t believe that you can make the same claim mathew and btw the reason i brought up the blanket bombing in germany was because you were bemoaning the iraqi civilian casualties as being so deplorable yet blanket bombing was instituted because bombing wasn t accurate enough to hit industrial military targets in a decisive way by any other method at that time but in the gulf war precision bombing was the norm so the point was why make a big stink about the relatively few civilian casualties that resulted in spite of precision bombing when so many more civilians proportionately and quantitatively died under the blanket bombing in ww even with precision bombing mistakes happen and some civilians suffer but less civilians suffered in this war than any other iany other in history many iraqi civilians went about their lives with minimal interference from the allied air raids the stories of hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilian dead is just plain bunk yes bunk the us lost servicemen in ww over four years and the majority of them were directly involved in fighting but we are expected to swallow that hundreds of thousands of civilian iraqis died in a war lasting about months and with the allies using the most precise bombs ever created at that what hogwash if hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilians died it was due to actions hussein took on his own people not due to the allied bombing regards jim b
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics maddi hausmann chirps timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes first of all you seem to be a reasonable guy why not try to be more honest and include my sentence afterwards that honest it just ended like that i swear that s nice hmmmm i recognize the warning signs alternating polite and rude coming into newsgroup with huge chip on shoulder calls people names and then makes nice whirrr click whirrr you forgot the third equality whirrr click whirrr see below whirr click whirr frank o dwyer might also be contained in that shell pop stack to determine whirr click whirr killfile keith allen schneider frank closet theist o dwyer maddi the mad sound o geek hausmann whirrr click whirrr bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes the positive aspect of this verse noted by dr maurice bucaille is that while geocentrism was the commonly accepted notion at the time and for a long time afterwards there is no notion of geocentrism in this verse or anywhere in the qur an there is no notion of heliocentric or even galacticentric either my sole intention was learning to fly
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and anarchists mccullou whipple cs wisc edu writes my turn i went back and reread your post all you did is attack atheism and say that agnosticism wasn t as funny as atheism nowhere does that imply that you are agnostic or weak atheist as most people who post such inflammatory remarks are theists it was a reasonable assumption sorry you re right i did not clearly state it rule condescending to the population at large i e theists will not win many people to your faith anytime soon it only ruins your credibility how am i being condescending to the population at large i am stating something that happened to be true for a long time i couldn t believe that people actually believed in this god idea it was an alien concept to me i am not trying to win people to my faith as you put it i have no faith religion was a non issue when i had the attitude above because it never even occurred to me to believe atheist by default i guess you could say the most common form of condescending is the rational versus irrational attitude once one has accepted the assumption that there is no god s and then consider other faiths to be irrational simply because their assumption s contradict your assumption then i would say there s a lack of consistency here now i know you ll get on me about faith if the positive belief that god does not exist were a closed logical argument why do so many rational people have problems with that logic but you probably like me seem to be a soft atheist sorry for the flamage the line about atheists haveing something up their sleeves is what seemed to imply that sorry been reading too much on the clipper project lately and the paranoia over there may have seeped in some what is the clipper project btw rule don t mix apples with oranges how can you say that the extermination by the mongols was worse than stalin khan conquered people unsympathetic to his cause that was atrocious but stalin killed millions of his own people who loved and worshipped him and his atheist state how can anyone be worse than that many rulers have done similar things in the past only stalin did it when there was plenty of documentation to afix the blame on him the evidence is that some of the early european rulers ruled with an iron fist much like stalin s you threw in numbers and i am sick of hearing about stalin as an example because the example doesn t apply you managed to get me angry with your post because it appeared to attack all forms of atheism it might have appeared to attack atheism in general but its point was that mass killing happens for all sorts of reasons people will hate who they will and will wave whatever flag to justify it be it cross or hammer sickle the stalin example is important not only because it s still a widely unappreciated era that people want to forget but also because people really did love him and his ideas even after all that he had wrought the evidence i am referring to is more a lack of evidence than negative evidence say i claim there are no pink crows i have never seen a pink crow but that doesn t mean it couldn t exist but this person here claims that there are pink crows even though he admits he hasn t been able to capture one or get a photo or find one with me etc in a sense that is evidence to not believe in the existence of pink crows that is what i am saying when i look at the evidence i look at the suppossed evidence for a deity show how it is flawed and doesn t show what theists want it to show and go on first all the pink crows unicorns elves arguments in the world will not sway most people for they simply do not accept the analogy why one of the big reasons is that many many people want something beyond this life you can pretend that they don t want this but i for one can accept it and even want it myself sometimes and there is nothing unique in this example of why people want a god can love as a truth be proven logically themselves namely a god or gods so in principle it s hard to see how theists are necessarily arrogant makes no sense to me they seem arrogant to make such a claim to me but my previous refutation still stands and i believe there may be another one on the net john the baptist boasted of jesus to many people i find it hard to see how that behavior is arrogant at all many christians i know also boast in this way but i still do not necessarily see it as arrogance of course i do know arrogant christians doctors and teachers as well technically you might consider the person who originally made a given claim to be arrogant jesus for instance are you talking about all atheism or just strong atheism if you are talking about weak atheism which i believe in then i refuse such a claim atheism is a lack of belief i used good ol occam s razor to make the final rejection of a deity in that as i see things even if i present the hypothesises in an equal fasion i find the theist argument not plausible i speak against strong atheism i also often find that the evidence supporting a faith is very subjective just as say the evidence supporting love as truth is subjective i believe i answered that i apologize for the as you stated incorrect assumption on your theism but i saw nothing to indicate that you were an agnostic only that you were just another newbie christian on the net trying to get some cheap shots in no apology necessary bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky
alt.atheism	re so help you god in court in article tan psuvm psu edu andrew newell tan psuvm psu edu writes in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough says in article monack helium monack helium gas uug arizona edu david n monack writes another issue is that by having to request to not be required to recite the so help me god part of the oath a theistic jury may be prejudiced against your testimony even though atheism is probably not at all relevant to the case what is the recommended procedure for requesting an alternate oath or affirmation dave sorry for using a follow up to respond but my server dropped about a weeks worth of news when it couldn t keep up when the you are asked to swear so help you god and you have to say it ask which one jesus allah vishnu zues odin get them to be specific don t be obnoxious just humbly ask then quitely sit back and watch the fun james l felder sverdrup technology inc phone nasa lewis research center cleveland ohio email jfelder lerc nasa gov some people drink from the fountain of knowledge other people gargle
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes deletia wrt pathetic jee zus posting by bissel i hope you re not going to flame him please give him the same coutesy you ve given me no he hasn t extended to us the courtesy you ve shown us so he don t get no pie tammy i respect your beliefs because you don t try to stamp them into my being i have scorn for posters whose sole purpose appears to be to evangelize tammy
alt.atheism	re who says the apostles were tortured the traditions of the church hold that all the apostles meaning the surviving disciples matthias barnabas and paul were martyred except for john tradition should be understood to read early church writings other than the bible and heteroorthodox scriptures c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself sounds like you are saying he was a part of some conspiracy just what organization did he belong to does it have a name the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was logic alert artificial trifercation the are many other possible explainations could have been that he never existed there have been some good points made in this group that is not impossible that jc is an amalgam of a number of different myths mithra comes to mind some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people logic alert argument from incredulity just because it is hard for you to believe this doesn t mean that it isn t true liars can be very pursuasive just look at koresh that you yourself site he has followers that don t think he is a fake and they have shown that they are willing to die by not giving up after getting shot himself koresh has shown that he too is will to die for what he believes as far as healing goes if i rememer right the healing that was attributed is not consistent between the different gospels in one of them the healing that is done is not any more that faith healers can pull off today seems to me that the early gospels weren t that compeling so the stories got bigger to appeal better niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing or might not have existed or any number of things that is the logical pitfall that those who use flawed logic like this fall into there are bifurcations or tri quad etc that are valid because in the proceeding steps the person shows conclusively that the alternatives are all that are possible once everyone agrees that the given set is indeed all there are then arguments among the alternatives can be presentent and one mostly likely to be true can be deduced by excluding all other possible alternatives however if it can be shown that the set is not all inclusive then any conclusions bases on the incomplete set are invalid even if the true choice is one of the original choices i have given at least one valid alternative so the conclusion that jc is the real mccoy just because he isn t one of the other two alternative is no longer valid some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it jc was a rabbi he knew what those prophecies were it wouldn t be any great shakes to make sure one does a list of actions that would fullfill prophecy what would be compeling is if there were a set of clear and explicit prophecies and jc had absolutely no knowledge of then yet fullfilled them anyway i don t think most people understand what a christian is it is certainly not what i see a lot in churches rather i think it should be a way of life and a total sacrafice of everything for god s sake he loved us enough to die and save us so we should do the same hey we can t do it god himself inspires us to turn our lives over to him that s tuff and most people don t want to do it to be a real christian would be something for the strong to persevere at but just like weight lifting or guitar playing drums whatever it takes time we don t rush it in one day christianity is your whole life it is not going to church once a week or helping poor people once in a while we box everything into time units such as work at this time sports tv social life god is above these boxes and should be carried with us into all these boxes that we have created for ourselves here i agree with you anyone who buys into this load of mythology should take what it says seriously and what it says is that it must be a total way of life i have very little respect for xians that don t if the myth is true then it is true in its entirity the picking and choosing that i see a lot of leaves a bad taste in my mouth jim james l felder sverdrup technology inc phone nasa lewis research center cleveland ohio email jfelder lerc nasa gov some people drink from the fountain of knowledge other people gargle
alt.atheism	re some thoughts on fri apr gmt healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy said trh i hope you re not going to flame him please give him the same coutesy you trh ve given me but you have been courteous and therefore received courtesy in return this person instead has posted one of the worst arguments i have ever seen made from the pro christian people i ve known several jesuits who would laugh in his face if he presented such an argument to them let s ignore the fact that it s not a true trilemma for the moment nice word maddi original or is it a real word and concentrate on the liar lunatic part the argument claims that no one would follow a liar let alone thousands of people look at l ron hubbard now he was probably not all there but i think he was mostly a liar and a con artist but look at how many thousands of people follow dianetics and scientology i think the baker s and swaggert along with several other televangelists lie all the time but look at the number of follower they have as for lunatics the best example is hitler he was obviously insane his advisors certainly thought so yet he had a whole country entralled and came close to ruling all of europe how many germans gave their lives for him to this day he has his followers i m just amazed that people still try to use this argument it s just so obviously wrong ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians on apr gmt bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine said rb in article ofnwyg wb voa andrew cmu edu pl u andrew cmu edu patrick c leger writes ever hear of baptism at birth if that isn t preying on the young i don t know what is rb rb no that s praying on the young preying on the young comes rb later when the bright eyed little altar boy finds out what the rb priest really wears under that chasible the same thing scotsmen where under there kilt i ll never forget the day when i was about tweleve and accidently walked in on a roomfull of priests sitting around in their underware drinking beer and watching football kind of changed my opinion a bit they didn t seem so menacing after that ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re victims of various good fight s on apr f levels unisa edu au the desert brat said tdb disease introduced to brazilian oher s am tribes x million to be fair this was going to happen eventually given time the americans would have reached europe on their own and the same thing would have happened it was just a matter of who got together first ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article apr abo fi mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka writes and these objective values are please be specific and more importantly motivate i ll take a wild guess and say freedom is objectively valuable yes but whose freedom the world in general doesn t seem to value the freedom of tibetans for example mathew
alt.atheism	re koresh is god the latest news seems to be that koresh will give himself up once he s finished writing a sequel to the bible mathew
alt.atheism	re where are they now a in article qi innf n senator bedfellow mit edu tcbruno athena mit edu tom bruno writes stuff deleted which brings me to the point of my posting how many people out there have been around alt atheism since i ve done my damnedest to stay on top of more stuff deleted hmm usenet got it s collective hooks into me around or so right after i switched to engineering i d say i started reading alt atheism around i ve probably not posted more than messages in the time since then though i ll never understand how people can find the time to write so much i can barely keep up as it is ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is reply to frank d s uucp frank o dwyer i m one of those people who does not know what the word objective means when put next to the word morality i assume its an idiom and cannot be defined by its separate terms give it a try objective morality is morality built from objective values from a dictionary of philosophy by anthony flew objectivism the belief that there are certain moral truths that would remain true whatever anyone or everyone thought or desired for instance no one should ever deliberately inflict pain on another simply to take pleasure in his suffering might be thought of as a plausible example even in a world of sadists who all rejected it the contention remains true just as remains correct even if there is no one left to count the problem for the objectivist is to determine the status of moral truths and the method by which they can be established if we accept that such judgements are not reports of what is but only relate to what ought to be see naturalistic fallacy then they cannot be proved by any facts about the nature of the world nor can they be analytic since this would involve lack of action guiding content one ought always to do the right thing is plainly true in virtue of the vords involved but it is unhelpful as a practical guide to action see analytic and synthetic at this point the objectivist may talk of self evident truths but can he deny the subjectivist s claim that self evidence is in the mind of the beholder if not what is left of the claim that some moral judgements are true the subjectivist may well feel that all that remains is that there are some moral judgements with which he would wish to associate himself to hold a moral opinion is he suggests not to know something to be true but to have preferences regarding human activity david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article apr st andrews ac uk nrp st andrews ac uk norman r paterson writes i don t think you re right about germany my daughter was born there and i don t think she has any german rights eg to vote or live there beyond the rights of all ec citizens she is a british citizen by virtue of her parentage but that s not full citizenship for example i don t think her children could be british by virtue of her in the same way i am fairly sure that she could obtain citizenship by making an application for it it might require immigration to germany but i am almost certain that once applied for citizenship is inevitable in this case more interesting is your sentence in fact many people try to come to the us to have their children born here so that they will have some human rights how does the us compare to an islamic country in this respect do people go to iran so their children will have some human rights would you more interesting only for your propaganda purposes i have said several times now that i don t consider iran particularly exemplary as a good islamic state we might talk about the rights of people in capitalist secular third world countries to give other examples of the lack of rights in third world countries broadly say for example central american secular capitalist countries whose govt s the us supports but who amnesty international has pointed out are human rights vacua gregg
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article c jxru t news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes what do you base your belief on atheism on your knowledge and reasoning couldn t that be wrong actually my atheism is based on ignorance ignorance of the existence of any god don t fall into the atheists don t believe because of their pride mistake how do you know it s based on ignorance couldn t that be wrong why would it be wrong to fall into the trap that you mentioned also if i may what the heck where we talking about and why didn t i keep some comments on there to see what the line of thoughts were mac bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits
alt.atheism	re koresh is god on fri apr mathew mathew mantis co uk said m the latest news seems to be that koresh will give himself up once he s m finished writing a sequel to the bible also it s the th now can the feds get him on tax evasion i don t remember hearing about him running to the post office last night ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re the pope is jewish west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes the pope is jewish i always thought that the pope was a bear you know because of that little saying does a bear shit in the woods is the pope catholic there must be some connection between those two lines
alt.atheism	re bible quiz in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article qgbmt c f usenet ins cwru edu cr cleveland freenet edu frank d kirschner writes only when the sun starts to orbit the earth will i accept the bible since when does atheism mean trashing other religions there must be a god of inbreeding to which you are his only son pope john paul
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women benedikt rosenau i dbstu rz tu bs de wrote when the object of their belief is said to be perfect and make the believers act in a certain way and we observe that they don t we have a contradiction something defined contradictorily cannot exist that what the believe in does not exist secondly there are better explanations for why they believe than the existence of the object of their belief have you read the faq already benedikt benedikt i can t recall anyone claiming that god makes anyone act a particlar way i think that you re attempting to manufacture a contradiction god is said to require certain behavior but the only compulsion is the believer s sense of duty a standard of conduct does exist but we are free to ignore it or misunderstand it or distort it in whatever ways we find convenient but our response to god s edicts can in no way be used to question god s existence the behavior of believers is a completely separate question from that of god s existence there is nothing contradictory here to say that something defined contadictorily cannot exist is really asking too much you would have existence depend on grammar all you can really say is that something is poorly defined but that in itself is insufficient to decide anything other than confusion of course your point that there are better reasons for the phenomenon of belief than the object of belief may lead to a rat s nest of unnecessary complexity i think i know what you re implying but i d like to see your version of this better alternative just the same bill
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women scott d sauyet ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu wrote regardless of people s hidden motivations the stated reasons for many wars include religion of course you can always claim that the real reason was economics politics ethnic strife or whatever but the fact remains that the justification for many wars has been to conquer the heathens if you want to say for instance that economics was the chief cause of the crusades you could certainly make that point but someone could come along and demonstrate that it was really something else in the same manner you show that it was really not religion you could in this manner eliminate all possible causes for the crusades scott i don t have to make outrageous claims about religion s affecting and effecting history for the purpsoe of a a all i have to do point out that many claims made here are wrong and do nothing to validate atheism at no time have i made any statement that religion was the sole cause of anything what i have done is point out that those who do make that kind of claim are mistaken usually deliberately to credit religion with the awesome power to dominate history is to misunderstand human nature the function of religion and of course history i believe that those who distort history in this way know exaclty what they re doing and do it only for affect bill
alt.atheism	re some thoughts james felder spbach lerc nasa gov wrote logic alert argument from incredulity just because it is hard for you to believe this doesn t mean that it isn t true liars can be very pursuasive just look at koresh that you yourself cite this is whole basis of a great many here rejecting the christian account of things in the words of st madalyn murrey o hair face it folks it s just silly why is it okay to disbelieve because of your incredulity if you admit that it s a fallacy bill
alt.atheism	re some thoughts kent sandvik sandvik newton apple com wrote in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine wrote someone spank me if i m wrong but didn t lord liar or lunatic originate with c s lewis who s this campollo fellow anyway i do think so and isn t there a clear connection with the i do believe because it is absurd notion by one of the original christians origen there is a similar statement attributed to anselm i believe so that i may understand in both cases reason is somewhat less exalted than anyone posting here could accept which means that neither statement can be properly analysed in this venue bill
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians ed mccreary edm twisto compaq com wrote on apr gmt bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine said rb in article ofnwyg wb voa andrew cmu edu pl u andrew cmu edu patrick c leger writes ever hear of baptism at birth if that isn t preying on the young i don t know what is rb rb no that s praying on the young preying on the young comes rb later when the bright eyed little altar boy finds out what the rb priest really wears under that chasible does this statement further the atheist cause in some way surely it s not intended as wit bill
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians kent sandvik sandvik newton apple com wrote this is a good point but i think average people do not take up christianity so much out of fear or escapism but quite simply as a way to improve their social life or to get more involved with american culture if they are kids of immigrants for example since it is the overwhelming major religion in the western world in some form or other it is simply the choice people take if they are bored and want to do something new with their lives but not somethong too new or too out of the ordinary seems a little weak but as long as it doesn t hurt anybody the social pressure is indeed a very important factor for the majority of passive christians in our world today in the case of early christianity the promise of a heavenly afterlife independent of your social status was also a very promising gift reason slaves and non romans accepted the religion very rapidly if this is a hypothetical proposition you should say so if it s fact you should cite your sources if all this is the amateur sociologist sub branch of a a however it would suffice to alert the unwary that you are just screwing around bill
alt.atheism	re nicknames maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com wrote jcopelan nyx cs du edu the one and only writes we could start with those posters who annoy us the most like bobby or bill your wish is my command bill shit stirrer connor bobby circular mozumder i m not sure my new nom d net is exactly appropriate but it comes very close considering what i have to wade through before i make one of my insightful dead on the money repsonses i have to agree that something s getting stirred up i would like to believe my characterization of what i respond to would be kinder though but if you insist i am also surprised to find that i have offended anyone but in some cases it s unavoidable if i am to say anything at all for those to whom fairness is important check out my contributions haven t i been most generous and patient a veritable paragon of gentility oh btw i don t mind being paired with bobby i admire his tenacity how many of you would do as well in this hostile environment you think i m offensive read your own posts love and kisses bill p s my name is conner not connor no point in humiliating the innocents
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women keith m ryan kmr po cwru edu wrote nice cop out bill i m sure you re right but i have no idea to what you refer would you mind explaining how i copped out bill
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists this is fascinating atheists argue for abortion defend homosexuality as a means of population control insist that the only values are biological and condemn war and capital punishment according to benedikt if something is contardictory it cannot exist which in this case means atheists i suppose i would like to understand how an atheist can object to war an excellent means of controlling population growth or to capital punishment i m sorry but the logic escapes me and why just capital punishment what is being questioned here the propriety of killing or of punishment what is the basis of the ecomplaint bill
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution robert singleton bobs thnext mit edu wrote sure it isn t mutually exclusive but it lends weight to i e increases notional running estimates of the posterior probability of the atheist s pitch in the partition and thus necessarily reduces the same quantity in the theist s pitch this is because the divine component falls prey to ockham s razor the phenomenon being satisfactorily explained without it and there being no independent evidence of any such component more detail in the next post occam s razor is not a law of nature it is way of analyzing an argument even so it interesting how often it s cited here and to what end it seems odd that religion is simultaneously condemned as being primitive simple minded and unscientific anti intellectual and childish and yet again condemned as being too complex occam s razor the scientific explanation of things being much more straightforeward and apparently simpler which is it to be which is the non essential and how do you know considering that even scientists don t fully comprehend science due to its complexity and diversity maybe william of occam has performed a lobotomy kept the frontal lobe and thrown everything else away this is all very confusing i m sure one of you will straighten me out tough bill
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes ok you have disproved one thing but you failed to nail me see nowhere in my post did i claim that something must be believed in here are the three possibilities god exists god does not exist i don t know my attack was on strong atheism since i am i guess by what you said below that makes me a weak atheist snip first of all you seem to be a reasonable guy why not try to be more honest and include my sentence afterwards that honest it just ended like that i swear hmmmm i recognize the warning signs alternating polite and rude coming into newsgroup with huge chip on shoulder calls people names and then makes nice whirrr click whirrr clam bake timmons bill shit stirrer connor q e d whirr click whirr frank o dwyer might also be contained in that shell pop stack to determine whirr click whirr killfile keith allen schneider frank closet theist o dwyer the mind reels maybe they re all bobby mozumder maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com centigram communications corp san jose california kids please don t try this at home remember i post professionally
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political athei in article apr abo fi mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka writes in o rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew writes i wonder if noam chomsky is reading this i could be wrong but is he actually talking about outright government control of the media aka censorship if he doesn t any quick one stop shopping reference to his works that ll tell me in short what he does argue for manufacturing consent a film about the media you alternative movie source may have this or to book it in your local alternative theatre contact films transit international sales jan rofekamp notre dame e montreal quebec canada h y c tel fax telex filmtransmtl us readers call zeitgeist films at s shamim mohamed uunet noao cmcl arizona shamim shamim cs arizona edu take this cross and garlic here s a mezuzah if he s jewish a page of the koran if he s a muslim and if he s a zen buddhist you re on your own member of the league for programming freedom write to lpf uunet uu net
alt.atheism	re requests in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes from bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine subject re requests date apr gmt in article c qllg bc mailer cc fsu edu mayne cs fsu edu writes excess stuff deleted however it seems that a local church elder has been getting revelations from god about a devastating quake scheduled to level the area on may rd he has independent corroboration from several friends who apparently have had similar revelations the quake was in fact in response to a request from the lot of them seeking a sign from god on the veracity of their visions none of this would be terribly interesting except for the amount of stir it has created in the area many many people are taking these claims very seriously there are some making plans to be out of the are on the target date my local religious radio station devoted hours of discussion on the topic i even called up during one of the live broadcasts to tell the host that he would have a full account of my conversion on may th provided my family and i survived the devastation and ruin that will invariably follow the quake bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea i know of a similar incident about years ago a climatologist ithink that was his profession named iben browning predicted that an earthquake would hit the new madrid fault on dec some schools in missouri that were on the fault line actually cancelled school for the day many people evacuated new madrid and other towns in teh are i wouldn t be suprised if there were more journalists in the area than residents of course teh earthquake never occured how do i know about his i used to live in southern illinois and the lican middle school was built directly on the fault line no we still had school we laughed at the poor idiots who believed the prediction bob if you re wanting an excuse to convert to christianity you gonna have to look elsewhere tammy no trim healy
alt.atheism	re studies on book of mormon in article snx enkidu mic cl agrino enkidu mic cl andres grino brandt writes from agrino enkidu mic cl andres grino brandt subject studies on book of mormon date sun apr cst hi i don t know much about mormons and i want to know about serious independent studies about the book of mormon i don t buy the official story about the gold original taken to heaven but haven t read the book of mormon by myself i have to much work learning biblical hebrew i will appreciate any comment about the results of study in style vocabulary place names internal consistency and so on for example there is evidence for one writer or multiple writers there are some mention about events places or historical persons later discovered by archeologist yours in collen andres grino brandt casilla santiago agrino enkidu mic cl chile no hay mas realidad que la realidad y la razon es su profeta i don t think the book of mormon was supposedly translated from biblical hebrew i ve read that prophet joseph smith traslated the gold tablets from some sort of egyptian ish language former mormons please post tammy no trim healy
alt.atheism	re societal basis for morality in article c prv ni news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb wrote we have to expect others to follow our notion of societally mandated morality pardon the extremism but couldn t i murder your brother and say that i was exercising my rights as i saw them was doing what felt good didn t want anyone forcing their morality on me or i don t follow your morality good statement should we apply empirical measurements to define exact social morals should morals be based on social rules on ancient religious doctrines it seems there will never be a common and single denominator for defining morals and as such defining absolute and objective morals is doomed to fail as long as humans have this incredible talent of creative thinking cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote fred the problem with such reasoning is that for us non believers we need a better measurement tool to state that person a is a real muslim christian while person b is not as i know there are no such tools and anyone could believe in a religion misuse its power and otherwise make bad pr it clearly shows the sore points with religion in other words show me a movement that can t spin off khomeinis stalins davidians husseins i don t think such a system exists i think the reason for that is an condition known as free will we humans have got it anybody using their free will can tell lies and half truths about any system and thus abuse it for their own ends i don t think such tools exist either in addition there s no such thing as objective information all together it looks like religion and any doctrines could be freely misused to whatever purpose this all reminds me of descartes whispering deamon you can t trust anything so why bother cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c pxqs lm darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner wrote as for your question of moral free agency given the christian position above the freedom we have is to acknowledge god the morality we practice is a direct outgrowth of how we excercise that freedom you are free to ignore god in the same way you are free to ignore gravity and the consequences are inevitable and well known in both cases that an atheist can t accept the evidence means only that he prefers not to accept it it says nothing about the evidence itself i agree i had a hard feeling not believing my grand grand mother who told me of elves dancing outside barns in the early mornings i preferred not to accept it even if her statement provided the truth itself life is hard cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article c qt p mvo blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee wrote in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes i think many reading this group would also benefit by knowing how deviant the view as i ve articulated it above which may not be the true view of khomeini is from the basic principles of islam from the point ov view of an atheist i see you claim khomeini wasn t practicing true islam but i m sure that he would have said the same about you how am i a member of neither group supposed to be able to tell which one of you two is really a true muslim fred rice answered this already in an early posting the problem with your argument is that you do not know who is a real believer and who may be faking it this is something known only by the person him herself and god your assumption that anyone who claims to be a believer is a believer is not necessarily true in other words it seems that nobody could define who is a true and false muslim we are back to square one khomeini and hussein are still innocent and can t be defined as evil or good islamic worshippers cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote the problem with your argument is that you do not know who is a real believer and who may be faking it this is something known only by the person him herself and god your assumption that anyone who claims to be a believer is a believer is not necessarily true so that still leaves the door totally open for khomeini hussein et rest they could still be considered true muslims and you can t judge them because this is something between god and the person you have to apply your rule as well with atheists agnostics you don t know their belief this is something between them and god so why the hoopla about khomeini not being a real muslim and the hoopla about atheists being not real human beings cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re suggestion for resources faq date mon apr gmt from bruce stephens bruce liverpool ac uk i think a good book summarizing and comparing religions would be good i confess i don t know of any indeed that s why i checked the faq to see if it had one but i m sure some alert reader does i think the list of books suffers far too much from being christian based i agree that most of the traffic is of this nature although a few islamic references might be good but i still think an overview would be nice one book i have which presents a fairly unbiased account of many religions is called man s religions by john b noss it was a textbook in a class i had on comparative religion or some such thing it has some decent bibliographies on each chapter as a jumping off point for further reading it doesn t compare religions directly but describes each one individually and notes a few similarities but nothing i have read in it could be even remotely described as preachy or christian based in fact christianity mercifully consumes only or so of its nearly pages the book is divided according to major regions of the world where the biggies began india east asia near east there is nothing about new world religions from the aztecs mayas incas etc just the stuff people kill each other over nowadays and a few of the older religions snuffed out along the way if you like the old stuff then a couple of books called the ancient near east by james b pritchard are pretty cool got the epic of gilgamesh code of hammurabi all the stuff from way back when men were gods and gods were men essential reading for anyone who wishes to make up their own religion and make it sound real good
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics date apr gmt from bake timmons timmbake mcl ucsb edu my my there are a few atheists with time on their hands ok first i apologize i didn t bother reading the faq first and so fired an imprecise flame that was inexcusable how about the nickname bake flamethrower timmons you weren t at the koresh compound around noon today by any chance were you remember koresh dried for your sins and pass that beef jerky umm umm
alt.atheism	re objective values v scientific accuracy was re after years can we say that christian morality is in article s rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk wrote lpzsml unicorn nott ac uk steve lang writes values can also refer to meaning for example in computer science the value of is true and is false not in lisp true all you need to define is one statement that defined one polarity and all the other states are considered the other polarity then again what is the meaning of nil false or true cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re it s all mary s fault dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes nice attempt chris verrry close you missed the conspiracy by step joseph knew who knocked her up he couldn t let it be known that somebody else got ol mary prego that wouldn t do well for his popularity in the local circles so what happened is that she was feeling guilty he was feeling embarrassed and they decided to improve both of their images on what could have otherwise been the downfall for both clever indeed come to think of it i have gained a new respect for the couple maybe joseph and mary should receive all of the praise being paid to jesus lucky for them that the baby didn t have any obvious deformities i could just see it now mary gets pregnant out of wedlock so to save face she and joseph say that it was god that got her pregnant and then the baby turns out to be deformed or even worse stillborn they d have a lot of explaining to do dave buckminster fuller how is that one o keeper of the nicknames nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was in article c l fv h r ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes how would a man of th century arabia have known what not to include in the holy qur an assuming he had authored it so now we re judging the qur an by what s not in it how many mutton headed arguments am i going to have to wade through today lots of other books have been written on this subject those books can speak far more eloquently than i one would hope bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bnr ca rashid writes p s i m not sure about this but i think the charge of shatim also applies to rushdie and may be encompassed under the umbrella of the fasad ruling please define the words shatim and fasad before you use them again john david munch jmunch hertz elee calpoly edu the heart can change be full of hate or love if people are allowed to base their lives through their hearts anything can happen a dangerous situation in my opinion bobby mozumder describing problems with atheism
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article apr cs nott ac uk eczcaw mips nott ac uk c wainwright writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes the authorities i am referring to is the authority of the world islamic community over itself my point was simply that islamic law does apply to muslims wherever they are despite the fact that islamic law may not be enforcable in non islamic countries muslims residing in the uk may decide to be tried or whatever by the islamic community but their rulings have no legal consequences in these isles it s not really their decision to be tried the rulings do have legal consequences but only in islamic law and not in uk law this should be obvious enforcing a judgment is distinct from the making of a judgment take for example the judgments of the world court this is an internationally recognized tribunal whose judgments often have no physical or economic effect but which are important despite the fact that their judgments cannot be enforced the person may be excommunicated or similar but if it decided to mete out violent laws such as the fatwa then it would be breaking uk laws itself and the persons doing such would be liable to prosecution of course have you read any of this thread before this post to ignore the country s laws in preference to religious laws which are not indigenous to the country in question is an absurd and arrogant notion of course it is a sort of anarchism anarchism is explicitly against islam thank you for your well reasoned response but it is beside the points i ve been making in this thread gregg
alt.atheism	re jewish settlers demolish a mosque in gaza in c iwxm g z news chalmers se d bertil dtek chalmers se bertil jonell writes in article kutluk ccl umist ac uk kutluk ccl umist ac uk kutluk ozguven writes atheists are not mentioned in the quran because from a quranic point of view and a minute s reasoning one can see that there is no such thing but there are people who say that they are atheists if they aren t atheists what are they when the quran uses the word din it means way of individual thinking behaving communal order and protocols based on a set of beliefs this is often interpreted as the much weaker term religion the atheists are not mentioned in the quran along with jews mushriqin christians etc because the latter are all din to have a din you need a set of beliefs assumptions etc to forma a social code for example the marxist have those such as history conflict etc that they do not put idols sometimes they did to represent those assuptions does not mean they are any different from the other mushriq or roughly polytheists there cannot be social atheism because when there is a community that community needs common ideas or standard beliefs to coordinate the society when they inscribe assumptions say nation or progress is the natural consequence of human activity or parlamentarian democracy is doubtlessly the best way of government however they individually insist they do not have gods from the quranic point of view they do therefore by definition atheism does not exist we are a atheist society in fact means we reject the din other than ours atheism can only exist when people reject all the idols gods dogmas suppositions of the society that they part and in that case that is a personal deviation of belief and quran tells about such deviations and disbelief but as i mentioned from a quranic point of looking at things there is no atheism in the macro level i think it took more than one minute kutluk
alt.atheism	nostalgia the recent rise of nostalgia in this group combined with the incredible level of utter bullshit has prompted me to comb through my archives and pull out some of the best of alt atheism for your reading pleasure i ll post a couple of these a day unless group concensus demands that i stop or i run out of good material i haven t been particularly careful in the past about saving attributions i think the following comes from john a johnson but someone correct me if i m wrong this is probably the longest of my entire collection so that the prophecy be fulfilled in considering the christian religion and judging it according to its claims it is important to look at its claims at fulfilling earlier jewish prophecy the scribe matthew is perhaps the most eager to draw out what he thinks are prophetic answers in the career of jesus of nazareth as you will see matthew s main strategy is to take various old testament passages often not even about the promised messiah and apply them to the circumstances in the new testament we must also bear in mind the question of the authenticity of the accounts since the gospels were written at least years after jesus was executed we do not know how much happened exactly as stated but for purposes of analysis we will take particular claims at face value immanuel we begin of course at the beginning mt mary will bear a son and you joseph will name him jesus which means g d is salvation for he will save his people from their sins all this happened to fulfil what the lord had spoken by a prophet isaiah in the days of ahaz c bce king of judah rezin of syria and pekah of israel made war on jerusalem capitol of judah but could not quite conquer it when the house of david i e ahaz and his court in judah were told of this its heart and the heart of its people shook and the lord g d said to isaiah go to meet with ahaz and the lord spoke to ahaz through prophet isaiah naturally saying ask a sign of g d your lord it can be as deep as sheol or as high as heaven but ahaz said i won t ask i will not put the lord to a test then isaiah said hear then o house of david is it not enough for you to weary men that you must weary my god too therefore the lord himself will give you a sign behold a young woman is with child and will bear a son and name him immanuel which means g d is with us he will eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse evil and choose good for before the child knows how to refuse evil and choose good the land of the two kings you dread will have been deserted matthew homes in on just the sentence that is in italics further he the hebrew word almah young woman as specifically virgin but this is not a prophecy about the messiah it is not a prophecy about an event to happen years later it is not a prophecy about a virgin bethulah mother in short it not about jesus matthew has made use of a verse out of context and tries to make it fit the specific case of mary it should be noted that if we want to read the prophecy in a general manner a very general one it can be made to fit mary mary virgin or not was indeed a young woman with child of course the fit is shady and has problems jesus while thought of by later christians to be g d walking among men was never called by the name immanuel if christianity wished to claim this prophecy for jesus it becomes at best a cut and paste prophecy a second class prophecy not too convincing egypt after jesus s birth in bethlehem matthew tells about a quick and elsewhere unmentioned excursion to egypt as if he wishes to liken jesus to moses this was done to escape an alleged infanticidal rampage of the king herod mt and remained there until the death of herod this was to fulfil what the lord had spoken out of egypt i have cal led my son what the lord really said was this hosea when israel was a child i loved him and out of egypt i called my son the more i called them my people the more they went from me they kept sacrificing to the ba als and kept burning incense to idols matthew conveniently omits the rest of hosea s oracle but it was indeed israel that once called out of egypt wanted to return this is history jesus is certainly not being spoken of here and if we are to draw some kind of parallel here we wind up with a jesus that flees and resists g d again this prophecy is just not as convincing as matthew probably had hoped rachel weeps while jesus is off vacationing in egypt matthew says that king herod sought to kill him and thus ordered the executions of all young male children matthew then writes mt by this that which was spoken by the prophet jeremiah was fulfilled a voice was heard in ramah wailing and loud lamentation rachel weeping for her children she refused to be consoled because they were no more the reference is to a passage in jeremiah referring to the carrying off of israel into exile by sargon of assyria in bce rachel the ancestor of the major tribes of israel ephraim and manasseh is said to weep for her descendants who are no more it is metaphorical of course since rachel lived and dies before the hebrews were even in the egyptian exile it is interesting to note that it was leah not rachel who was the ancestor of the judeans the land where jesus and bethlehem were if anyone should do weeping for her children it is leah the only connexion that rachel has with bethlehem is that the legends have it that she was buried north of the city on the way to ephrath bethlehem as for herod and his infanticide it is rather unlikely that such an event actually occurred one never knows but the event is not mentioned or alluded to anywhere else in the bible nor is it mentioned in any of the secular records of the time herod was particularly unliked in his reign and many far less evil deeds of herod were carefully recorded this might be a prime example of how events were added to jesus s life to enhance the message of the church s gospel because of the whole story s similarity to the tale of the infant moses in egypt it is highly likely that it is a device set up by matthew to add prophetic yet artificial approval of jesus it is not surprising that matthew conveniently neglects to mention the rest of the jeremiah quote the children the prophet speaks of are not dead but exiled in the assyrian empire g d comforts the weeping rachel saying that the children will be returned he will gather them back together of course this would not suit matthew s purpose as the children he speaks of are dead for good again the prophecy matthew sets up is not even that and to anyone who bothers to check it out is not too convincing the nazarene we do not even have to go to the next chapter to find another matthean prophecy after leaving egypt joseph wife take the infant jesus to live in the city of nazareth mt that what was spoken of by the prophets might be fulfilled he shall be called a nazarene first thing we notice is that matthew does not mention the name of the prophet s this time second we have to ask who he is there are no messianic prophecies speaking of a nazarene worse there are no prophecies period mentioning a nazarene still worse there are no nazarenes mentioned in the old testament at all in the book of judges an angel tells samson s mother that she will judges conceive and bear a son no razor shall tough his head for he will be a nazirite to his god from the day of his birth he will deliver israel from the hands of the philistines this is of course not a prophecy of jesus or the messiah of g d but it is the best that can be found obviously matthew has begun to go overboard in cut and paste prophecies in that he is simple making them up now bearing our diseases jesus next goes around healing people of physical illnesses and disabilities mt this was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet isaiah he took our infirmities and bore our diseases as expected the verse quoted in isaiah is quoted out of context and a few words are skewed to fit the christian scheme we have is surely he the suffering servant has borne our sickness and carried our pains from a reading of the surrounding passages in isaiah we know that the prophet is speaking in present tense of the collective nation of israel jehovah s chosen servant and people he speaks to the israelites suffering in exile in the voice of the gentile nations that look upon it this image is deeply ingrained in jewish identity an image of a chastised yet cherished israel as the instrument of the nations salvation by g d the verses speak of israel taking on the sicknesses which are the literal and metaphorical manifestations of guilt and discipline they do not speak of a servant going around and healing people notice that the servant in isaiah takes on the sicknesses and pains of the nations and individual jews jesus as we all know did not take the diseases onto himself the verses here in isaiah are not a prophecy of something to come but rather something that had already happened while it is believed that jesus took on the eternal punishment of hell he did not bear the illnesses he healed so while someone might want to say that figuratively jesus reenacted the deeds of israel in his spiritual atonement he has to admit that matthew s parallel misses where he intended it to have its effect silent messiah upon healing multitudes of commoners it is said that jesus ordered them to keep quiet presumable so that he wouldn t arouse the attention of the local rulers mt this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet isaiah behold my servant whom i have chosen my beloved with whom my soul is pleased i will put my spirit on him and he will announce justice to the gentiles he will not wrangle or cry aloud nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets he will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory and the gentiles will hope in his name the isaiah passage quoted reads is behold my servant whom i uphold my chosen in whom my soul delights i have put my spirit on him and he will bring forth justice to the nations we will not cry or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street he will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick he will faithfully bring forth justice he will not fail burn dimly or be discouraged bruised until he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands await his law you see matthew has conveniently left out part of the passage because it does not suit the dealings of jesus christians could never think of jesus failing never would the light of mankind burn dimly but the servant nation of israel will indeed come to an end when its job is done when the gentiles come to embrace g d there will no longer be a chosen people but rather all will be the children of g d also the ending phrase has been changed from the judaic the coastlands await his law to the christologic the gentiles will hope in his name while the original proclaims the torah law of jehovah the other rewrites it to fit its strange doctrine of believing in the name if one has any doubt the servant referred to is not jesus one has only to read the whole chapter isaiah and hear about the beloved but blind and imperfect servant a people robbed and plundered so we see that when matthew s attempt at prophecy is examined it crumbles three days and three nights now we come upon a prophecy supposedly uttered by the very mouth of the god jesus himself he speaks of his crucifixion and resurrection mt for as jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights so will the son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights before any further discussion can occur it is necessary to know how the jews understood days as far as day names went each was hours long lasting from sunset pm to the following sunset pm what was referred to as a day was the period of light from am to the ending sunset at pm thus according to our time scale a sabbath day began at pm friday evening and lasted until pm saturday evening this is why the jews celebrate their sabbath on the daylight portion of saturdays instead of sundays it seems like a real miracle that christians didn t forget that saturday was indeed the seventh and last day of the week thus when days and nights are referred to together hour daylight portions and hour night periods are being spoken of thus jesus says that he will be in the grave or in hell or otherwise unresurrected for three days and three nights as the good book tells us jesus was crucified on the ninth hour which is pm friday afternoon he then was put into the grave sometime after that then jesus left the grave rose before dawn of what we call sunday the dawn after the sabbath was over what this means is that jesus was using our time for clarity in the grave from pm friday night to some time before am sunday morning we could also add a little time before pm friday since the bible is not specific here what this means using jewish time is that he was in the grave for one day two nights and possibly a couple of hours of one day certainly this is a problem for jesus prediction there is absolutely no way we are even able to have his death involve three days and three nights even using modern time measurements we then are led to suspect that this error is another one of matthew s little mistakes and that the gospel writer put false words into his god s mouth and no matter who made the prediction it is more than unconvincing it is counter convincing hearing understanding jesus tool on a habit of speaking to his vast audiences in parables stories in which a deeper meaning could be found if you were already one of the elect those chosen to understand the message of jesus he reasons that those who can understand the parables are the ones he wants if the people cannot understand them there is no need to bother with them since they will not accept the plain message any better matthew says mt with them the audience indeed in fulfilled the prophecy of isaiah which says you will indeed hear but never understand and you will indeed see but never perceive because this people s heart has grown dull their ears are heavy of hearing and they have shut their eyes so the they would not perceive with them her with their ears and understand with their heart and turn for me to heal them the original isaiah passages are part of his earlier works his call to the ministry this is in bce when israel is flourishing right before it falls under the authority of assyria isaiah sees the good times ending and also a vision from g d calling him to bring reform to israel and judah is and g d said go and say to this people hear and hear but do not understand see and see but do not perceive make the heart of this people fat make their ears heavy and shut their eyes so they will not see with their eyes or hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed then isaiah said how long lord and he said until the cities lie waste without inhabitant and houses without men and the land is utterly desolate and the g ds take men far away and forsaken places are many in the land and though a tenth will remain in it it will be burned again like a terebinth or an oak whose stump still stands when the tree is felled the holy seed is its stump here we see that it is really g d who causes the people of israel to stop listening to the prophet s warnings but reaffirms the promise made to solomon s and david s seed lineage if you read the rest of isaiah you find that this is done to fulfil the plan of g d to use israel as a servant a light to the nations look at isaiah we see that matthew has cut and pasted just a little portion of isaiah s verse to suit his own gospel needs more than that he has altered the words to make it fit the people who didn t understand jesus s stories and as we see isaiah s verses are not prophecies but rather commands from g d to him in the present once again matthew s prophecy falls flat on its face matthew tries again to make jesus s parables look like they have the prophetic approval mt he said nothing to them without a parable this was to fulfil what was spoken of by the prophet i will open my mouth to them in parables i will utter that which has been hidden since the foundation of the world matthew really botches up here he attempts to quote not from a prophet but from the psalms ps i will open my mouth in parable i will utter dark sayings of old things that we all have heard and known things that our fathers have told us we will not hide them from their children but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the lord as was pointed out the verses in the psalms do not really come from a prophet you might also want to know that earlier copies of matthew s gospel even inserted isaiah s name as this prophet apparently later scribes caught the error and tried to cover some of it up perhaps the most significant part of this is that once again matthew has altered the old testament scriptures as jesus has said earlier he speaks in parables so that some will not understand them the parables in the psalms are not to be hidden further they speak of things known that our fathers have told us jesus deals with things hidden since the foundation of the world indeed jesus dealt in a lot of secrecy and confusion this is in direct opposition to the parables in the psalms no wonder matthew had to rewrite them and still once again matthew s artificial prophecies fall flat on their face but christians rarely look at this matthew s prophecies aren t the only things about christianity that are beginning to look bad excuses of little faith in mt we see that the disciples are able to go around casting out demons except in one case not knowing what epilepsy was the people thought those with the disease were possesed with demons it is no wonder that the disciples were unable to dispossess the epileptic but jesus perhaps no more enlightened than they is reported to have rebuked them saying they didn t have enough faith this seems strange why was this demon special it seems that either a true believer has faith or he does not apparently enough faith will allow someone to move mountains of course you will find no one these days that can move real mountains no one parts seas the only miracles the charismatics can speak of are those rumoured to happen on trips to mexico or some faraway place major miracles are making some old woman s arthritis feel better on sunday morning t v and the gods including jesus are always shrouded in ancient lore and writings protected from the skeptics in their sacred pasts they are either dead sleeping or hiding in heaven with people rumouring about their imminent return and their great miracles of days long gone yet life goes on tales of mystics stories of miracles all in a distant time or a distant place gods used to reveal themselves to men in the old days jehovah too but now they are silent all the theologians give are various excuses as to why we don t get to see god anymore we re too lazy we re not zealous enough we re sinful it s just his plan we put too many of our own demands on g d s appearance if we had the right faith if we were willing to meet g d on his terms yet even the most pious of men have not seen g d you dear reader have not seen g d not literally you know that to be true i know that s presumptuous and bold but searching your heart you know what i mean all that we ve seen religions do is make people feel good and content about not seeing g d they say our little faith does not merit us to see g d sometimes they say see the love in these people you worship with see the lives of people change that is seeing g d thus people get lulled to sleep satisfied with turning g d into the everyday sights but that is not seeing g d as i am speaking of it is not seeing g d the way people used to see what we see in the world that is good is the compassion of human hearts the love given and taken by men and women the forgiveness practised by christian atheist alike beauty created by the mind of man these are the things that are done these are what we see but it is said this is so only because everybody has little faith jesus rides on an ass shortly after accepting the role of the jewish messiah king jesus requests a donkey be brought in for him to ride into jerusalem mt this took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet saying tell the daughter of zion behold your king is coming to you humble mounted on an ass and on a ass colt of course the passage quoted from zechariah reads a little differently lo your king comes to you he is triumphant and victorious humble and riding on an ass on an ass colt he will command peace to the nations there isn t all that much difference here except that zechariah only involves one animal an ass colt while matthew reads the poetic wording slightly differently thus he has jesus call for both a colt and an adult ass from matthew s version we get a comical picture of the divine christ sweating it to straddle two donkeys this could inevitably lead to a theological proctological dilemma we find that in the account written earlier by st mark only the colt was called for and brought to jesus this indeed fits the verses of zechariah properly and shows us that in matthew attempt to use prophetic verses he has bungled now excluding many respectable christians i have met i have noticed that while christ is thought to have ridden on asses the situation is often reversed nowadays then entering the jerusalem temple the priests were angered at people and youngsters calling jesus the messiah but jesus replied as we might expect matthew to have done mt haven t you read out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou has brought perfect praise it is more likely that matthew made this response up since jesus was never one to point out such little prophetic things and since as we might expect the quote is in error which seems to fit matthew s track record quite well we might ask jesus or matthew haven t you read for the source reads psalms o yahweh our lord how majestic is your name in the whole world you whose glory is chanted above the heavens by babes and infants you have founded a bulwark against your foes to still the enemy and the avenger the passages hardly need comment there is no perfect praise spoken of in the psalm and what praise is there is given to g d not his messiah king and not jesus as mentioned it seems to be just one more case of matthew s pen making up convenient prophetic scripture yhvh said to my lord jesus is said to have asked from whom the promised jewish messiah king is to be descended the jews agree it is king david but then jesus counters by quoting psalms the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until i put your enemies under your feet taken at face value jesus is denying the necessity of davidic descent one assumes he is in opposition to their answer of course the christian answer is that he agrees but is trying to make some hidden point to reveal some mystery about the divine nature of the messiah king it s tempting to believe this if one is a christian and not interested in matters of investigation but there are problems in jesus s time the psalm was thought to be about the messiah and it is easy to see why david might refer to the messiah as his superior we need only look at the scriptures about the messiah to see that he is expected to be a great king bringing the jews to times even better than those under david s rule of course the jews listening had no good answer and the passage could indeed refer to a divine messiah such as the christians worship the problem lies in the meaning of this psalm an error that apparently several jews of jesus s time had also made one must remember that there were various factions among the jews often as a result of different expectations of the messiah king jesus was apparently one of these adventists like his audience who thought the messiah s advent was imminent and who interpreted psalms among others as being messianic what is the problem then psalm literally reads yhvh s utterance to my lord sit at my right hand until i make your enemies your footstool yhvh sends forth your mighty scepter from zion rule in the midst of your foes your people will offer themselves freely on the day you lead your host on the holy mountains you are a priest of the order of melchizedek forever the word lord is often mistakenly capitalised by christian bibles to denote divinity in this lord but in the hebrew the word is adoni and no capitalisation exists adoni simply means lord a generic term as we would use it it is used often in the scriptures to refer to kings and to g d it is merely an address of respect there is nothing in the text itself to imply that the word refers either to divinity or to the messiah king that this is supposed to be written by david is not certain the title of the psalm translates to either a psalm of david or a psalm about david it seems fitting to assume it to be written by a court poet about david s covenant and endorsement from g d if the psalm had been written by david it is unlikely that he would be talking about the messiah the idea of a perfect king descended from david was not present in david s age we have extensive tales of david s doings and sayings none of which include any praises of a messiah many of the psalms show evidence of being written long after david was dead in times of the exile when g d had put his show of favour for david s kingdom on hold the description in the psalm fit david very well david was promised by g d a rise to power victory over his enemies successful judgement among the nations he conquered he achieved the priesthood common to melchizedek in being a righteous king enabled to bless the people it all fits we do not have to blame this problem on matthew alone though here there is not artificial prophecy alluded to though his use of the scripture is rather questionable still this event is common to the other gospels too so we let matthew off a little more easily this time it is interesting to note though how matthew dresses up the event the earlier gospel of mark tells the tale with jesus simply speaking to a crowd matthew has the pharisees who became the religious competition of an infant christianity be the target of jesus s question as we might expect matthew writes that the event ends up by embarrassing the pharisees such power is the pen moses jesus had it together all along we leave the gospel story of matthew momentarily to see a pseudo prophecy in john s gospel the gospel story of john deserves special treatment because it seems to be so far removed from the real events of jesus s career as told by even matthew but for the moment we will just look at one verse the early church leaders founded a religion on the jewish hopes of a messiah king and on an artificial extension of the original promises made by g d when constructing the history of abraham moses wrote of a promise of land and nationhood to the jewish people while this was accomplished eventually under the rule of king david the christians who came along later decided that they would claim the fulfillment of the promise but to do so they expanded on the promise preaching about a heavenly kingdom john j c speaking your father abraham rejoiced to see my day he say it and was glad it would be nice to tie in approval for jesus from abraham but abraham knew nothing of jesus or a messiah or anything christian i have tried and failed to find any event in the old testament which corresponds to john s little prophecy it is par for the course to see st john making up old testament backings just like his forerunner matthew many christians know that their faith has many of its foundations in such fraud and it is surprising they still cling to it the potter s field we are told that jesus was betrayed while in jerusalem by one of his followers judas iscariot matthew writes mt and throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple judas departed but the chief priests taking the silver said it isn t lawful for us to put it in the treasury since it is blood money so they bought a potter s field with it to bury strangers in then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet jeremiah and they took the thirty pieces of silver the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of israel and they gave them for the potter s field as the lord directed me this prophecy is an utterly gross bastardisation of old testament scripture first matthew has made a mistake regarding the name of the prophet it is zechariah who utters the verses which matthew makes use of zech and they weighed out my wages thirty shekels of silver then yhvh said to me cast them to the treasury the lordly price at which i was paid off by them so i took the thirty shekels of silver and cast them into the treasury in the house of yhvh first of all the verses of zechariah do not deal with a betrayer of the messiah or of g d the deal with a shepherd most likely a priest chosen to serve a function of presiding over the people shortly before g d would send judah and israel into conflict with one another the word treasury had been replaced by the king james scholars with to the potter precisely because this made matthew s quote fit better but this is a blatant error the correct translation of the hebrew is indeed treasury which also makes perfect sense in zechariah s context whereas potter s field is totally unrelated whether the mistranslation was intentional or not seems to be beyond speculation however given matthew s track record one finds it hard to resist the notion of intentional dishonesty of course matthew would have ample reason for altering the text the thirty pieces of silver match judas s situation and if as most christians seem to be the reader is willing to disregard the contextual incongruity matthew might have another prophecy to toss around however the correct translation of zechariah directly contradicts the situation with judas and the high priests the high priests would not put the money in the treasury the worthless shepherd of zechariah does exactly the opposite of course to the average thursday night bible student the prophecy as presented by matthew would be taken at new testament face value to those matthew s work is convincing enough wine vinegar casting lots then jesus is led away to be crucified mt they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall but when he tasted it he would not drink it and when they had crucified him they divided his garments among them by casting lots that it might be fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet they parted my garments among them and upon my vesture did they cast lots first of all the vinegar offered to jesus is actually common sour wine of the type that roman soldiers drank regularly we find that right before jesus dies the soldiers themselves give him some to drink not polluted with gall jn jesus said i thirst a bowl of vinegar stood there so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth when he had received the vinegar he said it is finished but matthew seems to be drawing on not a passage from the prophets but one from the psalms ps i looked for pity but there was none and for comforters but i found none they gave me poison for food lit they put gall in my meat and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink add to them punishment upon punishment may they have no acquittal from thee let them be blotted out of the book of the living of course the sour wine offered to jesus is done at his request of drink this does indeed seem to be a show of pity the psalm quoted is about david and his political and military enemies it is not about the messiah or jesus it is then not surprising that we run into further problem when we see that the jesus in the psalm asks g d for the damnation of the crucifiers whereas the jesus of the gospels says lk jesus said father forgive them the don t know what they do further matthew misses with his attempt to create prophecy by having gall a bitter substance put into jesus s drink not his meat as the psalm stipulates with the prophecy of the vinegar faulty we naturally ask what of the casting of lots this brings up the nd psalm which deserves discussion all by itself suffice it now to say that the fact that jesus s clothes were divided as told is no great thing it turns out that this happened often to any felon in those days as we will soon see it is perhaps the least erroneous passage of the psalm when applied to jesus it does indeed bring up the interesting question as to the quality of jesus s clothes for a man so removed from worldly possessions his ownership of clothes worthy of casting lots raises some suspicions the nd psalm this psalm is attributed to david as a lament of his condition under the attack of his enemies it becomes a song of praise to yhvh and of hope taken out of context parts of it seem to fit the plight of jesus at the crucifixion quite well we will examine the primary passages verse my god my god why have you forsaken me why are you so far from helping me far from the words of my groaning oh my god i cry by day but you don t answer and by night but find no rest jesus is said to have cried the first sentence while on the cross this suggests that the whole psalm is really about jesus rather than king david of course the rest of the first stanza does not fit as nicely to jesus or his execution jesus is not pictured as complaining about the whole ordeal he is supposed to be like the lamb led mute before its shearers indeed jesus doesn t do much groaning even when on the cross he certainly does not cry by both day and night on the cross but i am a worm and no man scorned by men all who see me mock at me they make faces and wag their heads he committed his cause to yhvh so let him deliver him for he delights in him this seems to fit jesus s execution pretty well with the exception of the holy messiah being called a worm many bulls encompass me they open their mouths widely at me like a ravening and roaring lion yea dogs are round about me a company of evildoers encir cle me they have pierced my hands and feet i can see all my bones they divide my garments among them and cast lost for my raiment but you yhvh be not far away deliver my soul from the sword my life from the power of the dog save me from the mouth of the lion and my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild bull it would seem quite convincing and i m sure the early christian fathers who wrote of this prophecy thought so too unfortunately this prophecy has a fatal flaw the words have pierced really do not exist in the psalm the correct hebrew translation is yea dogs are round about me a company of evildoers encircles me like the lion they are at my hands and feet in hebrew the phrase like the lion and a very rare verb form which can mean pierced differ by one phonetic character the word in the hebrew text is literally like the lion ka ari which makes sense in the context and even further fits the animal imagery employed by the psalm writer it is convenience that would urge a christian to change the word to ka aru but to add the needed yet artificial weight to the prophecy this is just what the christian translators have chosen to do while the correct translation does not eliminate the psalm from referring to jesus its absence does not say much for the honesty of the translators apart from the erroneous verse the psalm does not lend itself to jesus so easily verse speaks of the sufferer being saved from a sword rather than a cross this naturally fits the psalm s true subject king david as a side note we now know that crucifixions did not pierce the hands the palms but rather the forearms this doesn t say much in favour of the traditional thought of a resurrected jesus showing his disciples the scars on his palms but then facts aren t bound by our religious beliefs matthew escapes culpability this time as he does not attempt to draw many direct links between this psalm and his lord jesus but the psalm like many others was on the minds of all the gospel writers when they compiled the stories and interpretations of jesus s life and death how much these scriptures may have contributed to what actually got written down is a question that has serious repercussions for christian theology it is easy to see for those who are not faithful fundamentalists how some of the events in the new testament might have been enhanced by scribes such as the eager matthew but it does less to speculate than to simply investigate scriptural matters and prophetic claims so far this has not said good things for st matthew the reference to the piercing looks a lot like jesus s crucifixion john s gospel recount written about years after the fact tells us at jesus s execution jn but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and out came blood and water these things took place that scripture be fulfilled the will look on him whom they ve pierced of course this is built on a passage taken blatantly out of context prophet zechariah tells us how much of the nation of israel will split off from jerusalem and judah and go to war with them zc and yhvh will give victory to judah and on that day i will seek to destroy the nations that come against jerusalem in judah and i will pour a spirit of compassion and supplication on jerusalem so that when they look on him who they have pierced they will mourn and weep bitterly over him like you weep over a firstborn child john s attempt to make up prophecy is perhaps weaker that matthew s attempts matthew at least usually excontexts more than just one passage john s errors are grossly obvious and blatant here it does not speak well for any of the gospel writers as it helps to show how the prophetic aspects of their religion were founded reckoned with transgressors after his arrest jesus is quickly executed for claiming the jewish kingship messiahship according to one version of the gospel tale jesus gets executed along with two thieves mk and with him they crucified two robbers one on his right one on his left and so the scripture was fulfilled which says he was reckoned with the transgressors here mark is trying to link jesus to a passage in isaiah about the servant nation of israel the passage is not about the messiah for if one reads the whole chapter of isaiah and its surrounding chapters one sees that the servant is a nation the verses are also about what this servant has gone through in the past not a prediction of what is to come in any event the servant is thought of as a criminal this also happens to fit the description of jesus had the passage really been about the messiah it still is not at all clear why executing jesus between two thieves would fulfill the prophecy in isaiah jesus would more fittingly fulfill it with his whole ministry he was considered a blasphemer and troublemaker all throughout his career locking onto a single event is a rather poor way to steal prophecy at least in this case as we see that mark could have had made a better analogy with general comparisons mark goes on to tell us how those who were crucified with jesus also reviled him this is to be expected from a couple of robbers of course in his later recount st luke decides to change some things luke tells us lk and one of the criminals who was hanged with him railed aren t you the messiah save yourself and us this certainly fits with mark s recount which tells how the people who crucified jesus said save yourself and that the robbers did the same but then luke goes on but the other criminal rebuked the first saying don t you fear g d since you are under the same sentence of condemnation and we indeed justly so for we are receiving the due reward for our deeds but this man has done nothing wrong and he said jesus remember me when you come in your kingdom and jesus answered verily i say to you today you will be with me in paradise now this little dialogue seems highly contrived it stretches the imagination a bit to see this picture of one ruffian rebuking his fellow criminal with such eloquent speech we have a rather strange picture of a criminal lamenting over the goodness of his punishment and the justness of his suffering such a man apparently noble and of principle doesn t seem likely to have been a robber we wonder at the amount of theatrics created by luke of course luke s recount also disagrees with mark s luke has only one criminal revile jesus not both it is easy enough to discount the discrepancy because the account was made up but those who wish to believe it is all part of the error free words of g d do not have this avenue open this is yet another example of a writer trying to take an old testament passage and expand it and reinterpret it to suit his theology in this case the embroidery creates some embarrassing problems as we have seen the end of the world mt now comes perhaps one of the most extraordinary and embarrassing passages in the new testament it is found in all three of the synoptic gospel stories and casts some of the most unfavourable doubt on the whole theory of christianity jesus mentions the destruction of the jewish temples and buildings and his disciples ask him about this and about the end of the world which he has been warning about the disciples tell us when will this the temple s destruction be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age jesus take care that no one leads you astray for many will come in my name saying i am the christ you will hear of wars and rumours of wars for this must take place but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation all this is but the beginning of the birthpangs they will deliver you up put you to death and false prophets will arise and lead many astray but he who endures to the end will be saved this gospel will be preached throughout the whole world a testimony to the nations and then the end will come so when you see the desolation spoken of by the prophet daniel let those who are in judea flee to the mountains immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened the stars will fall from heaven then will appear the sign of the son of man in heaven and all the tribes of the earth will mourn and see the son of man coming and he will send out his angels and gather his elect learn the lesson of the fig tree as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth leaves you know that summer is near so also when you see all these things you will know that he is near at the very gate truly i say to you this generation will not pass away until all these things take place but of the day and hour no one knows not the angels not the son but only the father therefore you also must be ready for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect from this it is clear that jesus thought the world would in within the lifetimes of at least some of his disciples he tells them that although he doesn t know the exact day or hour that it will come and thus they must be ready theologians have wet their pants in panic to find some way out of this holy error but unfortunately jesus made himself to explicit he told his disciples that their generation would still be around at the end and that they in particular should prepare for it prepare to be swept away there have been some who resorted to removing the inerrant nature of the bible and said that the phrase this generation shall not pass away really means this race of people will not pass away of course the word for generation is used many times to refer to exactly that the generation of the disciples it is an interesting notion that when god decided to learn greek he didn t learn it well enough to make himself clear but it is quite obvious from the rest of the dialogue that the disciples at least some of them are supposed to live to the end of the world the charge of mistranslation is completely blown away by looking at the apostles responses it becomes abundantly clear from rev peter john and rev that jesus meant exactly what he said the end was very near for years christians have rationalised this th chapter of matthew or ignored its meaning altogether for years they have waited for their executed leader to come back hearing of wars and rumours of wars sure that he is coming soon surely he must be all we must do is wait can you imagine how tired he must be sitting around up there being holy waiting for just the right moment to spring so shortly after his crucifixion jesus of nazareth joshua ben joseph died it is said that after three days or three days and three nights or three periods of time or three eternal seconds or three of whatever they can decide makes for less trouble he was seen again resurrected glowing with divine radiance then the saviour decided it wasn t in the best interests of his new religion to stick around and therefore disappeared from sight into heaven so the story goes anyway as has been seen there were many things attributed to jesus when people got around to writing the gospel stories down to them jesus was the fulfiller of all prophecy and scripture we have seen though that this matter is quite shaky but throughout church history christians have held fast to faith in simple belief what doctrinal objections could not be solved with argumentation or brute force faith and forgetfulness kept away from question to question and investigate has never been the easiest way to treat matters thus for years the prophecies cited in the new testament have gone on largely accepted things may well continue that way for some time pausing a moment to consider the way the doctrines of christianity have been accepted and used properly or improperly to support wars and persecution i suppose there is one prophecy of which christianity can securely keep hold mt jesus don t think that i have come to bring peace on earth i haven t come to bring peace but rather a sword
alt.atheism	re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself i assume you are posting to encourage comments how much history has tony campello read not much it seems the arguements he uses i am summing up the book is about whether jesus was god or not i know many of you don t believe but listen to a different perspective for we all have something to gain by listening to what others have to say it is good to hear that there are a few reasonable christians about if only those christian scientists would take note in australia there is a very strong movement a bunch of christian scientists who believe that every single event in the bible is exactly true and that there is a rational explanation for it all that can be justified by using the laws of physics for example there are a few chaps who are trying to prove that the age of the universe is years old and that the error in conventional calculations is the result of the fact that the speed light has been rapidly decaying over the years and this has not been accounted for the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was or of course that he never existed and the bible was a story and was never intended to become a manifesto for a billion people did tony follow that one up some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed millions of people have died for a lie this point is difficult to substantiate since it is not well defined a great many religious arguments work in that way but consider the many aztec warriors who sacrificed themselves to their gods in the belief that this act would bring them victory of the spanish invaders the list is endless the aztecs lost btw call me a fool but i believe he did heal people that is perfectly reasonable but it is not grounds for me or anyone to become a christian more to the point it does not add weight to the claim that jesus was the real thing niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away have you ever seen a documentary about the rise of nazi germany more to the point did tony mention this one could hardly call werner heisenberg and his many colleagues fools or illogical men their support of hitler was based i presume upon an emotional issue rather than a rational agreement with his principles obviously my argument is invalid if tony thought that hitler was sane therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing hmmm i don t think his arguments warrant the use of a therefore some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it this is unfortunately what alot of religious discussions i have had with people result in quoting the bible the only reasonable way i think people can look at the bible is to treat the stories as some sort of metaphorical representation of the messages that the authors were trying to present if someone tries to interpret parts of the bible literally he or she will end up in all sorts of shit tony s argument would be perfectly reasonable for people who believe the events described in the bible took place but to convince someone who thinks the bible is total fiction that jesus is real by quoting the book is totally pointless for example in mathematics you cannot say a is equal to b because a is equal to b i don t think most people understand what a christian is that would possibly explain why there have so many people being killed in religious wars and why there are hundreds of different versions all claiming to be correct it is certainly not what i see a lot in churches rather i think it should be a way of life and a total sacrafice of everything for god s sake he loved us enough to die and save us so we should do the same hey we can t do it god himself inspires us to turn our lives over to him that s tuff and most people don t want to do it to be a real christian would be something for the strong to persevere at but just like weight lifting or guitar playing drums whatever it takes time we don t rush it in one day christianity is your whole life it is not going to church once a week or helping poor people once in a while we box everything into time units such as work at this time sports tv social life god is above these boxes and should be carried with us into all these boxes that we have created for ourselves i think if you posted this part to alt religion you would get more flames than here i have never really understood why the emotional sentiments of a stranger should be of interest to other people someone famous said that there two evils in life polititians and churchs one rules by fear of the living the other by fear of the dead if i am pressed i could probably find the exact quotation cheers charles
alt.atheism	re bible quiz in article apr ccsua ctstateu edu kellyb ccsua ctstateu edu wrote in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes only when the sun starts to orbit the earth will i accept the bible since when does atheism mean trashing other religions there must be a god of inbreeding to which you are his only son a i think that he has a rather witty sig file it sums up a great deal of atheistic thought imo in one simple sentence b atheism isn t an other religion sm steve mullins vos stratus com if a man empties his purse into his my opinions stratus opinions head no one can take it from him benjamin franklin
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was in article h r ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes i strongly suggest that you look up a book called the bible the quran and science by maurice baucaille a french surgeon it is not comprehensive but it is well researched i imagine your library has it or can get it for you through interlibrary loan i shall try to get hold of it when i have time to read of course in short dr baucaille began investigating the bible because of pre ceived scientific inaccuracies and inconsistencies he assumed that some of the problems may have been caused by poor translations in by gone days so he read what he could find in hebrew greek aramaic what he found was that the problems didn t go away they got worse then he decided to see if other religions had the same problems so he picked up the holy qur an in french and found similar prob lems but not as many so he applied the same logoic as he had with the bible he learned to read it in arabic the problems he had found with the french version went away in arabic he was unable to find a wealth of scientific statements in the holy qur an but what he did find made sense with modern understanding so he investigated the traditions the hadith to see what they had to say about science they were filled with science problems after all they were contemporary narratives from a time which had by pour standards a primitive world view his conclusion was that while he was impressed that what little the holy qur an had to say about science was accurate he was far more impressed that the holy qur an did not contain the same rampant errors evidenced in the traditions how would a man of th century arabia have known what not to include in the holy qur an assuming he had authored it so in short the writer or writers of quran decided to stay away from science if you do not open your mouth then you don t put you foot into your mouth either but then if you say quran does not talk much about science then one can not make claims like bobby does that you have great science in quran basically i want to say that none of the religious texts are supposed to be scientific treatises so i am just requesting the theists to stop making such wild claims vinayak vinayak dutt e mail vdp mayo edu standard disclaimers apply
alt.atheism	bible contradictions i would like a list of bible contadictions from those of you who dispite being free from christianity are well versed in the bible
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article c l ey jts news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes actually my atheism is based on ignorance ignorance of the existence of any god don t fall into the atheists don t believe because of their pride mistake how do you know it s based on ignorance couldn t that be wrong why would it be wrong to fall into the trap that you mentioned if i m wrong god is free at any time to correct my mistake that he continues not to do so while supposedly proclaiming his undying love for my eternal soul speaks volumes as for the trap you are not in a position to tell me that i don t believe in god because i do not wish to unless you can know my motivations better than i do myself you should believe me when i say that i earnestly searched for god for years and never found him bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re a silly question on x tianity in article pww spac at rice edu pww spacsun rice edu peter walker writes from pww spacsun rice edu peter walker subject re a silly question on x tianity date mon apr gmt in article qaqi inngje gap caltech edu werdna cco caltech edu andrew tong wrote so what
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was umar khan khan itd itd nrl navy mil wrote i strongly suggest that you look up a book called the bible the quran and science by maurice baucaille a french surgeon it is not comprehensive he was unable to find a wealth of scientific statements in the holy qur an but what he did find made sense with modern understanding so he investigated the traditions the hadith to see what they had to say about science they were filled with science problems after all they were contemporary narratives from a time which had by pour standards a primitive world view his conclusion was that while he was impressed that what little the holy qur an had to say about science was accurate he was far more impressed that the holy qur an did not contain the same rampant errors evidenced in the traditions how would a man of th century arabia have known what not to include in the holy qur an assuming he had authored it this book is worth a read to get a sensible view of this issue the book is in two sections section contains a fairly reasonable analysis of the bible showing many inconsistencies between the bible and modern science well we all know that no surprises section analyses the koran s version of the old testament stories and seems on the face of it to present a good case showing the koran is consistent with modern science however it was plain to me that this consistency was only possible by the vague phraseology of the koran take the flood for example the bible is full of detail forty days and forty nights pair of every animal etc we all know this is nonsense the koran s description of the same event is so obscure as to make possible an interpretation such as a big river flooded for a few days and caused much damage yes no contradiction but also not much fact the koran might be consistent with modern science but being consistent due to its vagueness compared with other books of that time does not seem much of an achievement the book concludes by saying something like the koran must have had divine inspiration because at the time it was written there were a lot of to us now ridiculous ideas about the universe and none of them can be found in the koran arguing for the greatness of a book by talking about what it does not contain seems absurd in the extreme the above is of course from memory so i may have missed some points leonard e mail l newnham bradford ac uk
alt.atheism	re the bible and abortion james j lippard lippard skyblu ccit arizona edu wrote exodus and if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage yet there is no further injury he shall surely be fined as the woman s husband may demand of him and he shall pay as the judges decide but if there is any further injury then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot burn for burn wound for wound bruise for bruise the most straightforward interpretation of these verses is that if men in a fight strike a woman and cause her to miscarry the penalty is only a fine if however the woman is injured or dies the lex talionis doctrine of an eye for an eye applies this is the jewish interpretation and is supported by jewish commentaries on these verses this is quite an embarrassment for pro lifer christians so there is of course an alternate explanation the alternative interprets the word miscarriage to mean premature birth i e the child is born alive and further injury to mean injury to either the woman or the fetus this is not a straightforward interpretation it is not so far as i know supported by any jewish commentaries and it does not appeared to be supported by any other part of the bible what if any historical reference do we have to abortion at this time did the ancient jew have appropriate reference to understand abortion i am truly asking not making a point veiled as a question if there is little understanding of the medical procedure we know as abortion it is not surprising the bible makes little reference to it as it makes little reference to nuclear power and contamination while your interpretation is a reasonable one i see no reason to reject the other out of hand the king jimmy translation says if there is no further mischief this does not necessarily imply to the woman i know if my wife we expecting and someone cause her to spontaneously abort we would feel that a life was truly taken not simply a process halted
alt.atheism	you will all go to hell you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger wrote khomeini advocates the view that there was a series of twelve islamic leaders the twelve imams who are free of error or sin this makes him a heretic wow you re quicker to point out heresy than the church in the middle ages seriously though even the sheiks at al azhar don t claim that the shi ites are heretics most of the accusations and fabrications about shi ites come out of saudi arabia from the wahabis for that matter you should read the original works of the sunni imams imams of the four madhabs the teacher of at least two of them was imam jafar sadiq the sixth imam of the shi ites although there is plenty of false propaganda floating around about the shi ites esp since the revolution there are also many good works by shi ites which present the views and teachings of their school why make assumptions and allegations like people in this group have done about islam in general about shi ites
alt.atheism	re note to bobby m again in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes how about people who are not religous take the inner city there are many people that care little for religion lot of crime lot of murder this is the other end lack of religion that allows wrong to happen i lived in tokyo for a year and a half and one of the many reasons why i intend to go back indefinitely is the freedom one enjoys when one can walk anywhere and i mean anywhere at any time of day or night and not feel uneasy even if one s from an ethnic minority as i was clues for bobby why do i bother i tokyo is a city and inner tokyo is an inner city ii there is a negligible level of violent crime and a street murder will be a lead item on national tv news iii the population is almost universally atheistic next time i go for a stroll around beirut at night i ll let you know how it compares bobby mozumder cheers simon simon clippingdale simon dcs warwick ac uk department of computer science tel university of warwick fax coventry cv al u k
alt.atheism	re islam a clearer view in article bafc i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes from i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau subject re islam a clearer view date tue apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes sorry it is generally accepted that the rise of the inquisition is the reason why torture was introduced outside the romanic countries at the end of the middle ages in other words the holy mother church which is lead infallibly by the holy ghost has spread it the roman catholic church claims to be lead by the infallable pope that s why she the rc church has done so many wicked things to xtians and non believers alike the rationale that the pope speaking ex cathedra is infallible is based on the claim above the dogma about the pope is of jesuitic origin and has not been been accepted before the mid of the last century benedikt you re right thanks for enlightening me tammy
alt.atheism	cannanite genocide in the bible excuse me for my ignorance but i remember reading once that the biblical tribe known as the philistines still exists they are the modern day palestinians anyone out there with more info please post it tammy
alt.atheism	getting to the point to all a a readers i have been asked be several of you to post a list of the sda church s fundamental beliefs i warn you now it s a long list however i ll post it on sunday sabbath is coming up soon so i won t be reading on saturday and i don t have time to do it now i would greatly appreciate it if you would keep me in touch with what s going on i hope all of you have a reastful and relaxing weekend i hope it s the best one so far tammy
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger wrote he d have to be precise about is rejection of god and his leaving islam one is perfectly free to be muslim and to doubt and question the existence of god so long as one does not reject god i am sure that rushdie has be now made his atheism clear in front of a sufficient number of proper witnesses the question in regard to the legal issue is his status at the time the crime was committed gregg so would you consider that rushdie would now be left alone and he could have a normal life in other words does islam support the notion of forgiving cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger wrote as i have stated on a parallel thread i am not an anarchist nor is islam anarchist therefore the uk should have control over itself however this does not change the fact that it is possible for citizens of the uk residing within the uk to be in violation of islamic law this is an interesting notion and one i m scared of in my case i m a finnish citizen i live in usa and i have to conform to the us laws however the finnish government is not actively checking out what i m doing in this country in other words checking out if i conform to the finnish laws however islamic law seems to be a curse that is following you everywhere in the world shades of eh cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re objective morality was re political atheists in article qlf ginn sn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider wrote which type of morality are you talking about in a natural sense it is not at all immoral to harm another species as long as it doesn t adversely affect your own i guess hehehe so you say but this objective morality somehere tells you that this is not the case and you don t know all the rules of such transcendental game systems cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re free moral agency and kent s in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy wrote at the time ezekiel was written israel was in apostacy again and if i m not mistaken tyre was about to make war on israel like i said the prince of tyre was the human ruler of tyre he was a wicked man by calling satan the king of tyre ezekiel was saying that satan is the real ruler over tyre tammy is this all explicitly stated in the bible or do you assume that you know that ezekiel indirectly mentioned it could have been another metaphor for instance ezekiel was mad at his landlord so he talked about him when he wrote about the prince of tyre sorry but my interpretation is more mundane ezekiel wrote about the prince of tyre when we wrote about the prince of tyre cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re sci skeptic religion was why alt atheism in article j j psuvm psu edu john a johnson j j psuvm psu edu writes standard groups sci soc talk must conform to stricter rules when being established and must show a certain volume of postings or else they will cease to exist these groups also reach more sites on usenet than alt groups i already posted my opinion to mathew s suggestion which was that alt atheism is on the verge of having too many garbage postings from fundies and elevating its status to a standard group and consequently the volume of such postings could make it unreadable i tend to agree i came here when it first started and watched it grow from the roots on talk religion misc it seemed to take a while for enough atheists to come forward to get past the let s trash xians and such now there s a stable core and frankly there s a feeling that this is our group if we go mainstream we re going to be in a lot more places and every fucking fundy loonie freshman will be dumping on us to find jeesus and warn us that we re all going to hell want to see what we ll get go real alt fan brother jed and imagine that those imbecilic tirades will be here all the time every other post i m being selfish i find i really learn a lot here and the s n isn t too bad the browns and the boobys are a distraction but they are few enough that they even bring in some of the leavening needed to offset them but i greatly fear that mainstreaming would basically put us at the swamping level of the conners of the world regards dew dewey henize sys net admin risc hardware pager x
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie is it just me or has this part gotten beyond useful gregg is not as i understand his posts giving any support to the bounty on rushdie s life if that s correct end of one point gregg is using the concept of legal in a way most westerners don t accept his comments about islamic law i think make a great deal of sense to him and are even making a little sense to me now if a person is a member of a group religion or whatever they bind themselves to follow the ways of the group within the bounds of what the group requires as a minimum the big bone of contention here that i m picking up is that in the west we have secular governments that maintain more or less a level of control and of requirements outside the requirements of optional groups i think the majority of us reading this thread are in tune note i didn t say in agreement with the idea that you are finally responsible to the secular government and within that to the group or groups a person may have chosen with that in mind it not possible under secular law legally as most people would define the term to hold a person to a particular group once they decide to separate from it only if the secular authorities agree that there is a requirement of some sort contractual etc is there any secular enforcement allowed by a group to a group member or past group member a religion can and often does believe in and require additional duties of a group member and it can enforce the fulfillment of those duties in many ways ostracism is common for example but the limit comes when the enforcement would impose unwanted and or unaccepted onus on a person in conflict with secular law this is the difference in a theocracy the requirements of the secular authorities are by definition congruent with the religious authorities outside a theocracy this is not necessarily true religious requirements may coincide or may not similiarly religious consequences may or may not coincide with secular consequences if any regards dew dewey henize sys net admin risc hardware pager x
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bnr ca rashid writes deletions the fatwa was levelled at the person of rushdie any actions of rushdie that feed the situation contribute to the legitimization of the ruling the book remains in circulation not by some independant will of its own but by the will of the author and the publishers the fatwa against the person of rushdie encompasses his actions as well the crime was certainly a crime in progress at many levels and was being played out and played up in the the full view of the media p s i m not sure about this but i think the charge of shatim also applies to rushdie and may be encompassed under the umbrella of the fasad ruling if this is grounded firmly in islam as you claim then you have just exposed islam as the grounds for terrorism plain and simple whether you like it or not whether rushdie acted like a total jerk or not there is no acceptable civilized basis for putting someone in fear of their life for words it simply does not matter whether his underlying motive was to find the worst possible way he could to insult muslims and their beliefs got that you do not threaten the life of someone for words when you do you quite simply admit the backruptcy of your position if you support threatening the life of someone for words you are not yet civilized this is exactly where i and many of the people i know have to depart from respecting the religions of others when those beliefs allow and encourage by interpretation the killing of non physical opposition you or i or anyone are more than privledged to believe that someone whether it be rushdie or bush or hussien or whover is beyond the pale of civilized society and you can condemn his her soul refuse to allow any members of your association to interact with him her peacably demonstrate to try to convince others to disassociate themselves from the miscreants or whatever short of physical force but once you physically threaten or support physical threats you get much closer to your earlier comparison of rape with you as the rapist who whines she asked for it look how she was dressed blaming the victim when you are unable to be civilized doesn t fly dew dewey henize sys net admin risc hardware pager x
alt.atheism	nicknames in article ufnyj a voqit vpa andrew cmu edu nm w andrew cmu edu nanci ann miller writes jcopelan nyx cs du edu the one and only writes welcome i am the official keeper of the list of nicknames that people are known by on alt atheism didn t know we had such a list did you your have been awarded the nickname of buckminster so the next time you post an article sign with your nickname like so dave buckminster fuller thanks again jim humor means never having to say you re sorry copeland of course the list has to agree with the nickname laws laid down by the gipu almost years ago you know the of them that were written on the iron tablets that melted once and had to be reinscribed since i am a prophet of the gipu i decree that you should post the whole list of nicknames for the frequent posters here if the first rule of humor is never having to say you re sorry then the second rule must be never having to explain yourself few things are worse that a joke explained in spite of this and because of requests for me to post my list o nicknames i must admit that no such list exists it was simply a plot device along with me being the keeper o the list to make the obvious play on the last name of fuller and to advance the idea that such a list should be made i assumed that the ol timers would recognize it for what it is nevertheless how about a list o nicknames for alt atheism posters if you think of a good one just post it and see if others like it we could start with those posters who annoy us the most like bobby or bill jim d oh i broke the second rule of humor copeland if god is dead and the actor plays his part sting his words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart history without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse will teach us without freedom from the past things can only get worse nothing
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war in article e rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes rush leland stanford edu voelkerding writes in article apr seachg com chrisb seachg com chris blask writes add to this the outrageous cost of putting someone to death special cell block years of court costs extra guards and the benefits of the death penalty entirely disappear that s because of your earlier claim that the one innocent death overrides the benefit of all the others obviously it s tragic but it is no argument for doing away with the death penalty if we went to war and worried about accidentally killing civilians all of the time because our determination of who the enemy really is is imperfect then there is no way to win the war yes fortunately we have right thinking folks like your good self in power and it was therefore deemed acceptable to slaughter tens or even hundreds of thousands of iraqis in order to liberate oil h h hkuwait we won the war hurrah hurrah the number of civilian iraqi deaths were way over exaggerated and exploited for anti war emotionalism by the liberal news media the facts are that less iraqis died in the gulf war than did civilians in any other war of comparable size this century this was due mostly to the short duration coupled with precise surgical bombing techniques which were technically possible only recently the idea that hundreds of thousands of iraqi citizens died is ludicrous not even hundreds of thousands of iraqi soldiers died and they were the ones being targeted or do you think that the us and its allies were specifically out to kill and maim iraqi civilians either the smart bombs didn t hit their targets and we know they did or they were targeting civilian targets which is hardly condusive to destroying iraq s military potential the military mission planners are not fools they know they have to hit military targets to win a war hitting civilian targets does nothing but unite the people against you not a laudable goal if one wants the people to rise up against their tyrant dictator ok so some innocent people died yes maybe the unarmed civilians fleeing along that road didn t need to be bombed to bits perhaps that kid with half his face burned off and the little girl with the mangled legs weren t entirely guilty but it s worth the death of a few innocents to save the oil h h hlives of the kuwaiti people isn t it after all the iraqis may not have had a chance to vote for saddam but they showed their acceptance of his regime by not assassinating him right all that surrendering and fleeing along open roads was just a devious ploy we were entirely within our rights to bomb em just in case without finding out if they were soldiers how about all the innocent people who died in blanket bombing in ww i don t hear you bemoaning them war is never an exact science but with smart bombs it s becoming more exact with a smaller percentage of civilian casualties sometimes mistakes are made targets are misidentified innocents die that s war the way it really is but the alternative to allow tyrannical dictators to treat the earth like it s one big rummage sale grabbing everything they can get is worse like patrick henry said some years ago i know not what course others may take but as for me give me liberty or give me death war is always the price one must be willing to pay if one wishes to stay free the death penalty was conceived as a deterrent to crime but the legal shenanigans that have been added automatic appeals lengthy court battles etc have relegated that purpose to a very small part of what it should be hence the question is do we instate the death penalty as it was meant to be and see if that deters crime or do we get rid of it entirely yes let s reinstate the death penalty the way it ought to be all that shit about fair trials and a court of appeals just gets in the way of justice let s give the police the absolute right to gun down the guilty and save ourselves the expense of all those lawyers think of the knock on benefits too la would never have had to spend so much money cleaning up after riots and holding showcase trials if the cops had been allowed to do their job properly a quick bullet through the head of rodney king and another for the cameraman and everyone would have been saved a great deal of unnecessary paperwork and expense after all if the police decide a man s guilty that ought to be enough the fact that the death penalty has been shown not to have any deterrent effect over imprisonment well that s entirely irrelevant mathew mathew your sarcasm is noted but you are completely off base here you come off sounding like a complete peace nik idiot although i feel sure that was not your intent so the iraqi war was wrong eh i m sure that appeasement would have worked better than war just like it did in ww eh i guess we shouldn t have fought ww either just think of all those innocent german civilians killed in dresden and hamburg how about all the poor french who died in the crossfire because we invaded the continent we should have just let hitler take over europe and you d be speaking german instead of english right now tyrants like hussein have to be stopped his kind don t understand diplomacy they only understand the point of a gun my only regret is that bush wimped out and didn t have the military roll into baghdad so now hussein is still in power and the iraqi people s sacrifice not to mention the americans who died was for naught liberating kuwait was a good thing but wiping hussein off the map would ve been better and as for poor poor rodney king did you ever stop and think why the jury in the first trial brought back a verdict of not guilty those who have been foaming at the mouth for the blood of those policemen certainly have looked no further than the video tape but the jury looked at all the evidence evidence which you and i have not seen when one makes a judgment without the benefit of a trial where evidence can be presented on both sides one has simply lowered himself to the level of vigilante justice a state of mind which your sarcasm above seemingly spoke against but instead tends to support in the case against the policemen law in this country is intended to protect the rights of the accused whether they be criminals or cops one is not found guilty if there is a reasonable doubt of one s guilt and only the jury is in a position to assess the evidence and render a verdict anyone else is simply succumbing to verbal vigilantism regards jim b
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article apr st andrews ac uk nrp st andrews ac uk norman r paterson writes i don t think you re right about germany my daughter was born there and i don t think she has any german rights eg to vote or live there beyond the rights of all ec citizens she is a british citizen by virtue of her parentage but that s not full citizenship for example i don t think her children could be british by virtue of her in the same way i am fairly sure that she could obtain citizenship by making an application for it it might require immigration to germany but i am almost certain that once applied for citizenship is inevitable in this case nope germany has extremely restrictive citizenship laws the ethnic germans who have lived in russia for over years automatically become citizens if they move to germany but the turks who are now in their third generation in germany can t it s not a very good example to show citizenship without descent karl lastly i come to china in the hope all you touch and all you see of fulfilling a lifelong ambition is all your life will ever be dropping acid on the great wall duke pink floyd a lie is still a lie even if billion people believe it
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell on fri apr edt jsn psuvm psu edu said j you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be j prepared for your eternal damnation hmm i ve got my mst k lunch box my travel scrabble and a couple of kegs of bass ale i m all set let s go everybody ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article bb i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes i assume that you say here a religious law is for the followers of the religion that begs the question why the religion has the right to define who is a follower even when the offenders disagree no i say religious law applies to those who are categorized as belonging to the religion when event being judged applies this prevents situations in which someone is a member of a religion who when charged claims that he she was not a member of the religion so they are free to go on as if nothing had happened gregg
alt.atheism	re an anecdote about islam in article bb i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes a brutal system filtered through leniency is not lenient huh how do you rate public floggings or floggings at all chopping off the hands heads or other body parts what about stoning i don t have a problem with floggings particularly when the offenders have been given a chance to change their behavior before floggings are given i do have a problem with maiming in general by whatever means in my opinion no one who has not maimed another should be maimed in the case of rape the victim is maimed physically and emotionally so i wouldn t have a problem with maiming rapists obviously i wouldn t have a problem with maiming murderers either may i ask if you had the same opinion before you became a muslim sure yes i did you see i don t think that rape and murder should be dealt with lightly you being so interested in leniency for leniency s sake apparently think that people should simply be told the did a bad thing and what about the simple chance of misjudgements misjudgments should be avoided as much as possible i suspect that it s pretty unlikely that given my requirement of repeated offenses that misjudgments are very likely orient is not a place having a single character your ignorance exposes itself nicely here read carefully i have not said all the orient shows primitive machism well then why not use more specific words than orient probably because in your mind there is no need to it s all the same because it contains sufficient information while more detail is possible it is not necessary and europe shows civilized bullshit this is bullshit time to put out or shut up you ve substantiated nothing and are blabbering on like islamists who talk about the west as the great satan you re both guilty of stupidities i just love to compare such lines to the common plea of your fellow believers not to call each others names in this case to substantiate it the quran allows that one beats one s wife into submission really care to give chapter and verse we could discuss it primitive machism refers to that i have misspelt that before my fault again not all of the orient follows the qur an so you ll have to do better than that sorry you haven t put out enough islam expresses extramarital sex extramarital sex is a subset of sex it is suppressedin islam that marial sexis allowed or encouraged in islam as it is in many branches of christianity too misses the point read the part about the urge for sex again religions that run around telling people how to have sex are not my piece of cake for two reasons suppressing a strong urge needs strong measures and it is not their business anyway believe what you wish i thought you were trying to make an argument all i am reading are opinions it is an argument that you doubt the validity of the premises does not change it if you want to criticize it do so time for you to put up or shut up this is an argument for why you don t like religions that suppress sex a such it s an irrelevant argument if you d like to generalize it to an objective statement then fine my response is then you have given no reason for your statement that sex is not the business of religion one of your arguments the urge for sex in adolescents is not so strong that any overly strong measures are required to suppress it if the urge to have sex is so strong in an adult then that adult can make a commensurate effort to find a marriage partner gregg
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article apr princeton edu qpliu phoenix princeton edu q p liu writes so while faith itself is a gift obedience is what makes faith possible what makes obeying different from believing i am still wondering how it is that i am to be obedient when i have no idea to whom i am to be obedient it is all written in the wholly babble the users guide to invisible pink unicorns to be granted faith in invisible pink unicorns you must read the babble and obey what is written in it to obey what is written in the babble you must believe that doing so is the way to be granted faith in invisible pink unicorns to believe that obeying what is written in the babble leads to believing in invisible pink unicorns you must essentially believe in invisible pink unicorns this bit of circular reasoning begs the question what makes obeying different from believing qpliu princeton edu standard opinion opinions are delta correlated
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bnr ca rashid writes what about the twelve imams who he considered incapable of error or sin khomeini supports this view of the twelve imans this is heresy for the very reasons i gave above i would be happy to discuss the issue of the imams with you although my preference would be to move the discussion to another newsgroup i feel a philosophy or religion group would be more appropriate i think many reading this group would also benefit by knowing how deviant the view as i ve articulated it above which may not be the true view of khomeini is from the basic principles of islam so that the non muslim readers of this group will see how far from the simple basics of islam such views are on the face of them and if they are not in contradiction with the basics of islam how subtle such issues are and how it seems sects exist in islam while they are explicitly proscribed by the qur an the topic is deeply embedded in the world view of islam and the esoteric teachings of the prophet s a heresy does not enter into it at all except for those who see islam only as an exoteric religion that is only nominally if at all concerned with the metaphysical substance of man s being and nature in my opinion considering any human being as having a substance or metaphysical fundamentally different from that of any other human being is a heretical notion and one proscribed by islam from your posts you seem fairly well versed in sunni thought you should seek to know shi ite thought through knowledgeable shi ite authors as well at least that much respect is due before the charge of heresy is levelled absolutely i would be interested in discussing this privately and i am interested in hearing how one might try to make the concept of error free and sinless human beings philosophically consistent with the teachings of the qur an however prima facie such attemptsa are highly susceptible to degenerating into monkery explicitly proscribed by the qur an as salaam a laikum alaikum wassalam gregg
alt.atheism	re koresh is god date fri apr from mathew mathew mantis co uk the latest news seems to be that koresh will give himself up once he s finished writing a sequel to the bible mathew writing the seven seals or something along those lines he s already written the first of the seven which was around pages or so and has handed it over to an assistant for proofreading i would expect any decent messiah to have a built in spellchecker maybe koresh will come with one
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was date fri apr gmt from umar khan khan itd itd nrl navy mil his conclusion was that while he was impressed that what little the holy qur an had to say about science was accurate he was far more impressed that the holy qur an did not contain the same rampant errors evidenced in the traditions how would a man of th century arabia have known what not to include in the holy qur an assuming he had authored it well it looks like the folks in soc religion islam have loosened up a bit and are discussing this topic as well as the banking interest topic a few books on the subject have also been mentioned in addition to the one you mentioned these may be hard to find but i think i may take a stab at it out of curiosity i know the one film i saw on this subject was pretty weak and the only two quotes i have seen which were used to show science in the koran which i posted here were also pretty vague i suspect that these books will extrapolate an awful lot on the quotes they have at least one poster on the islam channel seems to have some misgivings about the practice of using the koran to decide what is good science i wonder if islam has ever come up with the equivalent of the christians creation science on any topic it would be interesting to find a history of scientific interpretations of the koran to see if anyone used the koran to support earlier science which has since been discarded it is all too easy to look at science as it exists today and then interpret passages to match those findings people do similar things with the sayings of nostradamus all the time anyway it is a rather unique claim of islam and may be worth checking
alt.atheism	re keith is a relativist f levels unisa edu au the desert brat writes keith if you start wafffling on about how it is different for a human to maul someone thrown into it s cage so to speak you d better start posting tome decent evidence or retract your i think there is an absolute morality blurb a few weeks ago did i claim that there was an absolute morality or just an objective one keith
alt.atheism	re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes perhaps the chimps that failed to evolve cooperative behaviour died out and we are left with the ones that did evolve such behaviour entirely by chance that s the entire point are you going to proclaim a natural morality every time an organism evolves cooperative behaviour yes natural morality is a morality that developed naturally what about the natural morality of bee dance huh keith
alt.atheism	re objective morality was re political atheists sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes which type of morality are you talking about in a natural sense it is not at all immoral to harm another species as long as it doesn t adversely affect your own i guess hehehe so you say but this objective morality somehere tells you that this is not the case and you don t know all the rules of such transcendental game systems which objective system are you talking about what is its goal again which brand of morality are you talking about keith
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bnr ca rashid writes in article apr zeus calpoly edu jmunch hertz elee calpoly edu john munch wrote in article apr bnr ca rashid writes p s i m not sure about this but i think the charge of shatim also applies to rushdie and may be encompassed under the umbrella of the fasad ruling please define the words shatim and fasad before you use them again my apologies shatim i believe refers to slandering or spreading slander and lies about the prophets a s any of the prophets basically any prophet i ve ever dealt with has either been busy hawking stolen merchandise or selling swampland house lots in florida then you hear all the stories of sexual abuse by prophets and how the families of victims were paid to keep quiet about it it s a kind of willful caulmny and cursing that s indicated by the word this is the best explanation i can come up with off the top of my head i ll try and look up a more technical definition when i have the time never mind that but let me tell you about this chevelle i bought from this dude you guessed it a prophet named mohammed i ve got the car for like two days when the tranny kicks then manny my mechanic tells me it was loaded with sawdust take a guess whether mohammed was anywhere to be found i don t think so fasad is a little more difficult to describe again this is not a technical definition i ll try and get that later literally oh mohammed the word fasad means mischief but it s a mischief on the order of magnitude indicated by the word corruption it s when someone who is doing something wrong to begin with seeks to escalate the hurt yeah you mohammed disorder concern harm etc the mischief initially caused by their actions the wrong is specifically related to attacks against god and his messenger and mischief corruption disorder etc you slimy mass of pond scum resulting from that the attack need not be a physical attack and there are different levels of penalty proscribed depending on the extent of the mischief and whether the person or persons sought to make hay of the situation the severest punishment is death yeah right you re the one should be watching your butt you and your buddy allah the stereo he sold me croaked after two days your ass is grass jim yeah that s right jim
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes they spent quite a bit of time on the wording of the constitution they picked words whose meanings implied the intent we have already looked in the dictionary to define the word isn t this sufficient we only need to ask the question what did the founding fathers consider cruel and unusual punishment hanging hanging there slowing being strangled would be very painful both physically and psychologicall i imagine well most hangings are very quick and i imagine painless firing squad note not a clean way to die back in those days etc all would be considered cruel under your definition all were allowed under the constitution by the founding fathers and hangings and firing squads are allowed today too and if these things were not considered cruel then surely a medical execution painless would not be either keith
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes they spent quite a bit of time on the wording of the constitution i realise that this is widely held belief in america but in fact the clause on cruel and unusual punishments like a lot of the rest was lifted from the english bill of rights of just because the wording is elsewhere does not mean they didn t spend much time on the wording we have already looked in the dictionary to define the word isn t this sufficient since the dictionary said that a lack of mercy or an intent to inflict injury or grief counted as cruel sure people can be described as cruel in this way but punishments cannot keith
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes no i say religious law applies to those who are categorized as belonging to the religion when event being judged applies this who does the categorizing i d cheat on hillary too john laws local gop reprehensitive extolling traditional family values
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists in article qnpa inn av gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes hanging hanging there slowing being strangled would be very painful both physically and psychologicall i imagine well most hangings are very quick and i imagine painless i think this is a misnomer firing squad note not a clean way to die back in those days etc all would be considered cruel under your definition all were allowed under the constitution by the founding fathers and hangings and firing squads are allowed today too and if these things were not considered cruel then surely a medical execution painless would not be either but this just shows then that painful execution is not considered cruel and unusual punishment this shows that cruel as used in the constitution does not refer to whether or not the punishment causes physical pain rather it must be a different meaning i d cheat on hillary too john laws local gop reprehensitive extolling traditional family values
alt.atheism	re the nonexistance of atheists in article kutluk ccl umist ac uk kutluk ccl umist ac uk kutluk ozguven writes atheists are not mentioned in the quran because from a quranic point of view and a minute s reasoning one can see that there is no such thing i guess that s why scientists probably aren t mentioned either or stock brokers or television repairmen it s precious to know just how deep the brainwashing from childhood that it takes to progress a religion cleans away a very substantial part of the reasoning neurons but don t mind me i don t exist jim halat
alt.atheism	re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes deletion sure yes i did you see i don t think that rape and murder should be dealt with lightly you being so interested in leniency for leniency s sake apparently think that people should simply be told the did a bad thing straw man and you brought up leniency and what about the simple chance of misjudgements misjudgments should be avoided as much as possible i suspect that it s pretty unlikely that given my requirement of repeated offenses that misjudgments are very likely assuming that misjudgements are not correlated deletion i just love to compare such lines to the common plea of your fellow believers not to call each others names in this case to substantiate it the quran allows that one beats one s wife into submission really care to give chapter and verse we could discuss it has been discussed here chapter and verse were cited i assume that you weren t looking then let s be more exact do you think it is not in the quran and what would your consequences be when it it was shown to be in it primitive machism refers to that i have misspelt that before my fault again not all of the orient follows the qur an so you ll have to do better than that i have not claimed that it is sufficient for the argument when there are a lot of male dominated societies that qualify as machistic are you going to say that the situation of women is better in sufficeint areas of the orient deletion this is an argument for why you don t like religions that suppress sex a such it s an irrelevant argument if you d like to generalize it to an objective statement then fine my response is then you have given no reason for your statement that sex is not the business of religion one of your arguments the urge for sex in adolescents is not so strong that any overly strong measures are required to suppress it if the urge to have sex is so strong in an adult then that adult can make a commensurate effort to find a marriage partner you apparently have trouble reading things you don t like the point was having sex the way one wishes being a strong desire marriage is a red herring tell me about homosexuals for one you simply ignore everything that doesn t fit into the world as you would like to have it and as for the situation of adolescents one has probably keep your combination of leniency and maiming in mind whe you say that it does not take overly strong measures to suppress the urge for sex in adolescents benedikt
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article apr eagle wesleyan edu kmagnacca eagle wesleyan edu writes deletion nope germany has extremely restrictive citizenship laws the ethnic germans who have lived in russia for over years automatically become citizens if they move to germany but the turks who are now in their third generation in germany can t that s wrong they can benedikt
alt.atheism	re a little too satanic jon livesey writes so why do i read in the papers that the qumram texts had different versions of some ot texts did i misunderstand reading newspapers to learn about this kind of stuff is not the best idea in the world newspaper reporters are notoriously ignorant on the subject of religion and are prone to exaggeration in the interests of having a real story that is a bigger headline let s back up to at this point we have the masoretic text the various targums translations commentaries in aramaic etc and the septuagint the ancient greek translation the masoretic text is the standard jewish text and essentially does not vary in some places it has obvious corruptions all of which are copied faithfully from copy to copy these passages in the past were interpreted by reference to the targums and to the septuagint now the septuagint differs from the masoretic text in two particulars first it includes additional texts and second in some passages there are variant readings from the masoretic text in addition to fixing predating the various corrupted passages it must be emphasized that to the best of my knowledge these variations are only signifcant to bible scholars and have little theological import the dead sea scroll materials add to this an ancient copy of almost all of isaiah and fragments of various sizes of almost all other ot books there is also an abundance of other material but as far as i know there is no sign there of any hebrew antecdent to the apocrypha the extra texts in the septuagint as far as analysis has proceeded there are also variations between the dss texts and the masoretic versions these tend to reflect the septuagint where the latter isn t obviously in error again though the differences thus far are not significant theologically there is this big expectation that there are great theological surprises lurking in the material but so far this hasn t happened the dss are important because there is almost no textual tradition in the ot unlike for the nt c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes ray netcom com ray fischer writes frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes plus questions for you why do subjectivists relativists nihilists get so het up about the idea that relativism is better than objectivism to the degree that relativism is a more accurate decription of the truth than is objectivism it provides more power and ability to control events i think you lose the right to talk about the truth once you say values are relative accuracy is a value judgement too it so happens i agree with the substance of what you say below but it s clear to me that at least some values are objective truth is better than falsehood peace is better than war education is better than ignorance we know these things if we know anything while i ll agree that these are generally held to be good things i question whether they come very close to being objective values especially considering that at one time or another each has been viewed as being undesirable i doubt you could even come up with anything that could be said to be universally good or bad and when i referred to the truth i was using the term hypothetically realizing full well that there may not even be such a thing assuming for the moment that morals are relative then two relativists can recognize that neither has a lock on the absolute truth and they can proceed to negotiate a workable compromise that produces the desired results no they cannot because they acknowledge up front that the desired results do not exist that after all is the meaning of compromise plus some problems if the relativists have no values in common compromise is impossible what happens then who if anyone is right what happens if one relativist has a value never compromise a value plant bombs in crowded shopping areas after all if morals are relative these values cannot meaningfully be said to be incorrect true enough but they cannot be said to be anything more than personal morals one thing notably lacking in most extremists is any sense of personal accountability the justification for any socially unacceptable behaviour is invariably some higher authority aka absolute moral truth assuming that there is an absolute morality two disagreeing objectivists can either be both wrong or just one of them right there is no room for compromise once you beleive in absolute morals you must accept that you are amoral or that everyone who disagrees with you is amoral untrue one can accept that one does not know the whole truth part of the objective truth about morality may well be that flexibility is better than rigidity compromise is better than believing you have a lock on morals etc in the same way i can believe in an objective reality without claiming to know the mechanism for quantum collapse or who shot jfk an objective truth that says one cannot know the objective truth interesting notion certainly one can have as one s morals a belief that compromise is good but to compromise on the absolute truth is not something most people do very successfully i suppose one could hold compromise as being an absolute moral but then what happens when someone else insists on no compromise how do you compromise on compromising given a choice between a peaceful compromise or endless contention i d say that compromise seems to be better and i would agree but it s bloody to pointless to speak of it if it s merely a matter of taste is your liking for peace any better founded than someone else s liking for ice cream i m looking for a way to say yes to that question and relativism isn t it almost invariably when considering the relative value of one thing over another be it morals or consequences people only consider those aspects which justify a desired action or belief in justifying a commitement to peace i might argue that it lets people live long healthy and peaceful lives while that much may well be true it is incomplete in ignoring the benefits of war killing off the most agressive member of society trimming down the population stimulating production the equation is always more complex than presented to characterize relative morals as merely following one s own conscience desires is to unduly simplify it ray fischer convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth ray netcom com than lies friedrich nietzsche
alt.atheism	re islamic banks was re slavery in article monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in apr bmw mayo edu vdp mayo edu vinayak dutt writes so instead of calling it interest on deposits you call it returns on investements and instead of calling loans you call it investing in business that is in other words floating stocks in your company no interest is different from a return on an investment for one thing a return on an investment has greater risk and not a set return i e the amount of money you make can go up or down or you might even lose money the difference is the risk of loss is shared by the investor rather than practically all the risk being taken by the borrower when the borrower borrows from the bank but is it different from stocks if you wish to call an investor in stocks as a banker well then its your choice relabeling does not make it interest free it is not just relabeling as i have explained above it is relabeling also its still not interest free the investor is still taking some money as dividend on his investment ofcourse the investor in islamic banking its your so called bank is taking more risk than the usual bank but its still getting some thing back in return also have you heard of junk bonds vinayak vinayak dutt e mail vdp mayo edu standard disclaimers apply
alt.atheism	we don t need no stinking subjects in article ql avinn a gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes no if you re going to claim something then it is up to you to prove it think cold fusion well i ve provided examples to show that the trend was general and you or others have provided some counterexamples mostly ones surrounding mating practices etc i don t think that these few cases are enough to disprove the general trend of natural morality and again the mating practices need to be reexamined so what you re saying is that your mind is made up and you ll just explain away any differences at being statistically insignificant try to find immoral non mating related activities so you re excluding mating related activities from your natural morality no but mating practices are a special case i ll have to think about it some more so you ll just explain away any inconsistancies in your theory as being a special case yes i think that the natural system can be objectively deduced with the goal of species propogation in mind but i am not equating the two as you so think that is an objective system isn t necessarily the natural one are you or are you not the man who wrote a natural moral system is the objective moral system that most animals follow indeed but while the natural system is objective all objective systems are not the natural one so the terms can not be equated the natural system is a subset of the objective ones you just equated them re read your own words now since homosexuality has been observed in most animals including birds and dolphins are you going to claim that most animals have the capacity of being immoral i don t claim that homosexuality is immoral it isn t harmful although it isn t helpful either to the mating process and when you say that homosexuality is observed in the animal kingdom don t you mean bisexuality a study release in found that of female seagulls are lesbians well i m saying that these goals are not inherent that is why they must be postulates because there is not really a way to determine them otherwise although it could be argued that they arise from the natural goal but they are somewhat removed postulate to assume posit that s right the goals themselves aren t inherent i can create a theory with a postulate that the sun revolves around the earth that the moon is actually made of green cheese and the stars are the portions of angels that intrudes into three dimensional reality you could but such would contradict observations now apply this last sentence of your to your theory notice how your are contridicting observations i can build a mathematical proof with a postulate that given the length of one side of a triangle the length of a second side of the triangle and the degree of angle connecting them i can determine the length of the third side but a postulate is something that is generally or always found to be true i don t think your postulate would be valid you don t know much math do you the ability to use sas to determine the length of the third side of the triangle is fundemental to geometry guess which one people are going to be more receptive to in order to assume something about your system you have to be able to show that your postulates work yes and i think the goals of survival and happiness do work you think they don t or are they not good goals goals postulates again if one of the goals of this objective natural morality system you are proposing is survival of the species then homosexuality is immoral kcochran nyx cs du edu b c d e f g k m r s t tsakc my thoughts my posts my ideas my responsibility my beer my pizza ok
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in qkq t n horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp writes attempting to define objective morality i ll take a wild guess and say freedom is objectively valuable i base this on the assumption that if everyone in the world were deprived utterly of their freedom so that their every act was contrary to their volition almost all would want to complain so long as you keep that almost in there freedom will be a mostly valuable thing to most people that is i think you re really saying a real big lot of people agree freedom is subjectively valuable to them that s good and a quite nice starting point for a moral system but it s not universal and thus not objective therefore i take it that to assert or believe that freedom is not very valuable when almost everyone can see that it is is every bit as absurd as to assert it is not raining on a rainy day it isn t in sahara disclaimer it s great to be young and insane
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article ql qinn kf gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes schneider natural morality may specifically be thought of as a code of ethics that a certain species has developed in order to survive wait are we talking about ethics or morals here is the distinction important yes we see this countless times in the animal kingdom and such a natural system is the basis for our own system as well huh well our moral system seems to mimic the natural one in a number of ways please describe these number of ways in detail then explain the any contradictions that may arise in order for humans to thrive we seem to need to live in groups here s your problem we seem to need what s wrong with the highlighted word i don t know what is wrong is it possible for humans to survive for a long time in the wild yes it s possible but it is difficult humans are a social animal and that is a cause of our success define difficult and in order for a group to function effectively it needs some sort of ethical code this statement is not correct isn t it why don t you think so explain the laws in america stating that you have to drive on the right hand side of the road and by pointing out that a species conduct serves to propogate itself i am not trying to give you your tautology but i am trying to show that such are examples of moral systems with a goal propogation of the species is a goal of a natural system of morality so anybody who lives in a monagamous relationship is not moral after all in order to ensure propogation of the species every man should impregnate as many women as possible no as noted earlier lack of mating such as abstinence or homosexuality isn t really destructive to the system it is a worst neutral so if every member of the species was homosexual this wouldn t be destructive to the survival of the species for that matter in herds of horses only the dominate stallion mates when he dies is killed whatever the new dominate stallion is the only one who mates these seems to be a case of your natural system of morality trying to shoot itself in the figurative foot again the mating practices are something to be reexamined the whole theory needs to be reexamined kcochran nyx cs du edu b c d e f g k m r s t tsakc my thoughts my posts my ideas my responsibility my beer my pizza ok
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article ursa bear com halat pooh bears jim halat writes in article qjd o nlv horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes firstly science has its basis in values not the other way round so you better explain what objective atoms are and how we get them from subjective values before we go any further atoms are not objective they aren t even real what scientists call an atom is nothing more than a mathematical model that describes certain physical observable properties of our surroundings all of which is subjective rest deleted you were a liberal arts major weren tcha guess you never saw that photo of the smallest logo in the world ibm made with noble gas atoms krypton xenon i forget the specifics atoms trees electrons are all independently observable and verifiable morals aren t see the difference tep men who love brown tend to be warm and deep sensitive to the needs and desires of their partners sex is a hour a day thing snuggling by the fire walking in the rain or catching snowflakes on their tongue is a real turn on to a lover of brown thanx becka
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in apr batman bmd trw com responding to dave first with official a a nickname fuller the death penalty is a deterrent dave the person executed will never commit a crime again guaranteed that means that it is an effective anti recidivism measure it does not say that it deters an individual from committing a capital crime in the first place the true question is whether the threat of death is likely to actually stop one from murdering or commiting treason are there any other capital crimes anywhere in the usa that is if there were no death penalty would its introduction deter a would be criminal from committing her his crime i doubt it this is only the first step even if it were a strong deterrent short of being a complete deterrent i would reject it for what about the case of the innocent executed and even if we could eliminate this possibility i would reject the death penalty as immoral this makes me something of a radical on the issue although i think there are many opponents of captial punishment who agree with me but who find the innocent executed the strongest argument to make i would if magically placed in charge facilitate state aided suicide for criminals who have life sentences this could be a replacement for capital punishment those who don t want to live the rest of their lives in jail would always have this option scott sauyet ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in c l tg k q news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu writes if some society came up with a good reason for why rape and murder are ok i would be consistent with my position and hold that it was still wrong my basis of morality is not on societal norms or on current legalities my basis is surprise surprise on both the bible and on inherent moral abhorrences ah but what exactly is inherently abhorrent and why is it so what you re saying is in effect i think some things are repulsive and i know a whole bunch of other people who agree with me so they should be deemed absolutely immoral now and forever period which in and of itself is nice enough to some extent i agree with you but i do not agree that things are inherently or absolutely immoral they are labeled immoral each for its own good reason and if the reason can even theoretically change then so can the label yes that s vague and the only way i know off the top of my head to defend it is to say that all humans are similarly made yes that falls into the trap of creation no it doesn t humans are to some extent similar because we all belong to the same species that that species has evolved is another story altogether to a certain extent evolution can even lend credence to moral absolutism of a flavour my arguments are that it is better to exhibit trust goodness love respect courage and honesty in any society rather than deceipt hatred disrespect cowardness and dishonesty you re saying morality is what ll keep society alive and kicking it is i think up to a point but societies are not all alike and neither are their moralities no i haven t been everywhere and seen everyone but according to my thesis i don t have to since i hold that we were all created similarly similar identical if that makes an unfalsifiable thesis just say so and i ll both work out what i can and punt to fellow theists no it s falsifiable through finding someoe who was created different whatever that might be in the real world disclaimer it s great to be young and insane
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article qla g afp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere grow up childish propagandist gregg i m really sorry if having it pointed out that in practice things aren t quite the wonderful utopia you folks seem to claim them to be upsets you you have done no such thing bbci was an example of an islamically owned and operated bank what will someone bet me they weren t real islamic owners and operators an islamic bank is a bank which operates according to the rules of islam in regard to banking this is done explicitly by the bank this was not the case with bcci and why did these naive depositors put their life savings into bcci rather than the nasty interest motivated western bank down the street this is crap bcci was motivated by the same motives as other international banks with perhaps an emphasis on dealing with outlaws and the intelligence services of various governments so please don t try to con us into thinking that it will all work out right next time back to childish propaganda again you really ought to get a life rather than wasting bandwith on such empty typing there are thousands of islamic banks operating throughout the world which no one ever hears about if you want to talk about corrupted banks we can talk about all the people who ve been robbed by american banks gregg
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article qlb oinn shelley u washington edu jimh carson u washington edu james hogan writes p s t i come to my senses and accept the all knowing wisdom and power of the quran and allah not only that but allah himself drops by to congratulate me on my wise choice allah rolls a few bones and we get down then allah gets out the crisco bends over and invites me to take a spin around the block wow p s t i realize that maybe allah is looking for more of a commitment than i m ready for so i say man i ve got some programming to do gotta go i ll call you p s t thinking it over i renounce islam what loyalty jim it seems you ve been reading a little too much russell hoban lately as hemingway said my imitators always imitate the bad aspects of my writing hoban would no doubt say the same here gregg
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article c l jo news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in qlapk d v morrow stanford edu salem pangea stanford edu bruce salem writes in article c jrde m z news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes theory of creationism my theistic view of the theory of creationism there are many others is stated in genesis in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth wonderful now try alittle imaginative thinking huh imaginative thinking what did that have to do with what i said would it have been better if i said the world has existed forever and never was created and has an endless supply of energy and there was spontaneous generation of life from non life would that make me all wise and knowing and imaginative no but at least it would be a theory l warren kurt vonroeschlaub o kv iastate edu iowa state university math department carver hall ames ia j
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in jsn psuvm psu edu jsn psuvm psu edu writes who cares what the fellow wrote anyway i mean it came from psuvm so how could it possibly have been of any importance disperse smileys until no longer offended disclaimer it s great to be young and insane
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes well in one was not allowed to leave the domain of authority one is free to leave islam if one regards islamic law as a curse one should consider leaving islam the only way out seems to be death i d cheat on hillary too john laws local gop reprehensitive extolling traditional family values
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes you exagerate to the point of libel i gave only unpopular reasons deliberately or do you think that we should have let iraq absorb kuwait i could make the tired old poland comparison but i think you ve heard it but the principle aplies never play a chamberlain and roll over to another country being invaded that only invites further invasions perhaps we ought not to have supported a known genocidist provided him with weapon systems tactical support technology etc we made suddam hussein what did bush call him oh yes an ally and a freind i d cheat on hillary too john laws local gop reprehensitive extolling traditional family values
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article tan psuvm psu edu andrew newell tan psuvm psu edu writes in article jsn psuvm psu edu jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation readers of the group how convenient that he doesn t have a real name let s start up the letters to the sysadmin shall we his real name is jeremy scott noonan vmoper psuvm psu edu should have at least some authority or at least know who to email postmast psuvm bitnet respectively p rfowles or p wverity the sys admins at the same node are probably a better idea than the operator benedikt
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes deletion certainly it is a central aspect of islam to show mercy and to give those who ve done wrong even presuming rushdie did violate islamic law and committed crimes this was the basis for my posts regarding leniency which seemed not to have penetrated benedikt s skull you have demanded harsh punishments of several crimes repeating offenders have slipped in only as justification of harsh punishment at all typically religious doublespeak whenever you have contradictory statements you choose the possibility that suits your current argument it is disgusting that someone with ideas that would make theodore kkkaldis feel cozy can go along under the protection of religion gregg tell us would you kill idolaters benedikt
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes and it is he god almighty who created the night and the day and the sun and the earth all the celetial bodies swim along each in its rounded course holy quran hmm this agrees with the ptolemic system of the earth at the centre with the planets orbitting round it so copernicus and gallileo were wrong after all you haven t read very carefully if you look again you will see that it doesn t say anything about what is circling what anyway they are not moving in circles nor is there any evidence that everything goes around in a rounded course in a general sense wishy washy statements are not scientific benedikt
alt.atheism	re wholly babble was re free moral agency in article p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes deletion of course there is also the book of the subgenius and that whole collection of writings as well does someone know a ftp site with it benedikt
comp.graphics	call for presentations navy sciviz vr seminar call for presentations navy scientific visualization and virtual reality seminar tuesday june carderock division naval surface warfare center formerly the david taylor research center bethesda maryland sponsor ness navy engineering software system is sponsoring a one day navy scientific visualization and virtual reality seminar the purpose of the seminar is to present and exchange information for navy related scientific visualization and virtual reality programs research developments and applications presentations presentations are solicited on all aspects of navy related scientific visualization and virtual reality all current work works in progress and proposed work by navy organizations will be considered four types of presentations are available regular presentation minutes in length short presentation minutes in length video presentation a stand alone videotape author need not attend the seminar scientific visualization or virtual reality demonstration byoh accepted presentations will not be published in any proceedings however viewgraphs and other materials will be reproduced for seminar attendees abstracts authors should submit a one page abstract and or videotape to robert lipman naval surface warfare center carderock division code bethesda maryland voice fax e mail lipman oasys dt navy mil authors should include the type of presentation their affiliations addresses telephone and fax numbers and addresses multi author papers should designate one point of contact deadlines the abstact submission deadline is april notification of acceptance will be sent by may materials for reproduction must be received by june for further information contact robert lipman at the above address please distribute as widely as possible thanks robert lipman internet lipman oasys dt navy mil david taylor model basin cdnswc or lip ocean dt navy mil computational signatures and voicenet structures group code factsnet bethesda maryland phishnet stockings long legs the sixth sick shiek s sixth sheep s sick
comp.graphics	graphical representation of vector valued functions gnuplot etc make it easy to plot real valued functions of variables but i want to plot functions whose values are vectors i have been doing this by plotting arrays of arrows complete with arrowheads but before going further i thought i would ask whether someone has already done the work any pointers thanx in advance tom weston usenet weston ucssun sdsu edu department of philosophy office san diego state univ home san diego ca
comp.graphics	re dmorph in article apr usl edu jna ucs usl edu armstrong jay n writes can someone please tell me where i can ftp dta or dmorph dmorf dave s morph i think is what it means and dtax dave s tga assembler are available in the msdos uploads directory on the wuarchive they are arjed and bundled with their respective xmemory versions dmorfx exe and dtax exe you can also find a version of aaplay exe there with which you can view files you create with dta exe or dtax exe i downloaded the whole bunch last week and have been morphing away the afternoons since the programmes are all a bit buggy and definitely not ready to spread to the masses but they are very well written the interface is frustrating at first but it gets easy once you figure out the tricks i have noticed that dmorfx will crash horribly if you try to morph without using the splines option not sure why since i don t have the source i think it was written for tp if anyone else comes up with any other hints on getting the thing to work right tell me it took me several hours the first time just to figure out that if i just used the durned splines then it would work jna jna usl edu ryan rap cis ufl edu
comp.graphics	voice input vendor information needed hello i am looking to add voice input capability to a user interface i am developing on an hp unix workstation i would greatly appreciate information anyone would care to offer about voice input systems that are easily accessible from the unix environment the names or adresses of applicable vendors as well as any experiences you have had with specific systems would be very helpful please respond via email i will post a summary if there is sufficient interest thanks ken p s i have found several impressive systems for ibm pc s but i would like to avoid the hassle of purchasing and maintaining a separate pc if at all possible ken hinckley kph q virginia edu university of virginia neurosurgical visualization laboratory
comp.graphics	where can i find sipp i recently got a file describing a library of rendering routines called sipp simple polygon processor could anyone tell me where i can ftp the source code and which is the newest version around also i ve never used renderman so i was wondering if renderman is like sipp ie a library of rendering routines which one uses to make a program that creates the image thanks joe tham joe tham joth ersys edmonton ab ca
comp.graphics	re million vs thousand colors d hh dtek chalmers se henrik harmsen writes bits per r g b gives horrible machbanding visible in almost any picture bits per r g b colors gives visible machbanding color gradient picture has almost no machbanding this color resolution is see some small machbanding on the smooth color gradient picture but all in all there are situiations where you get visible mach banding even in a bit card if you create a very smooth color gradient of dark green white yellow or something and turn up the contrast on the monitor you will probably see some mach banding while i don t mean to damn henrik s attempt to be helpful here he s using a common misconception that should be corrected mach banding will occur for any image it is not the color quantization you see when you don t have enough bits it is the human eye s response to transitions or edges between intensities the result is that colors near the transistion look brighter on the brighter side and darker on the darker side andre andre yew andrey cco caltech edu
comp.graphics	translating tttddd to dxf or swiv d i am a mac user when it comes to graphics that s what i own software and hardware for and i ve recently come across a large number of tttddd format modeling databases is there any software mac or unix for translating those to something i could use like dxf please reply via email thanx eric oehler oehler picard cs wisc edu
comp.graphics	help on renderman language wanted hello everybody if you are using pixar s renderman d scene description language for creating d worlds please help me i m using renderman library on my next but there is no documentation about nextstep version of renderman available i can create very complicated scenes and render them using surface shaders but i can not bring them to life by applying shadows and reflections as far as i understand i have to define environmental and shadows maps to produce reflections and shadows but i do not know how to use them any advises or simple rib or c examples will be appreciated thanks in advance alex kolesov moscow russia talus imaging communications corporation e mail alex talus msk su next mail accepted
comp.graphics	re more gray levels out of the screen in article pp t cc tut fi jk lehtori cc tut fi kouhia juhana writes in article apr kpc com hollasch kpc com steve hollasch writes i think you re proposal would work to get an extra one maybe two extra bits of color resolution however if you had a display that chould do only zero or full intensity for each primary i don t think you d get great equivalent bit photographs i have not suggested to do so i wrote about problems and the problem were clearly visible with bit b w images not to mention bit images description of experiment deleted if the bit images are viewed quickly and in sync with screen then intensities could be better than we have i dunno more deleted in any case getting black color with slow machines is problem i could try it on our bit screens but i don t know how to render pixels with x in constant time i recall our double buffer has other image color and one b w that doesn t help either maybe i should dump photos to screen with low level code how a few years ago a friend and i took some grey level photos from a bit mac plus screen using this method displaying all levels synchronized to the hz display took about seconds after experimenting with different aperture settings and screen brightnesses we found a range that worked well giving respectable contrast the quality of the images was pretty good there were no visible contrast bands to minimize the exposure time the display program built different bit frames the first contained a dot only for pixels that had value the second only for pixels that had value etc these frames were stored using a sparse data structure that was very fast to or onto the screen in sequence creating these frames sometimes took minutes on that old mac but the camera shutter was closed during that time anyway and yes we wrote directly to the screen memory mea culpa our biggest problem was that small images were displayed in the top left corner of the screen instead of the center it took an extra week to have the film developed and printed because the processors took the trouble to manually move the all images into the center of the print who d have guessed regards jon rowlands
comp.graphics	re more gray levels out of the screen in article c c r btg csc ti com rowlands hc ti com jon rowlands writes a few years ago a friend and i took some grey level photos from a bit mac plus screen using this method displaying all levels synchronized to the hz display took about seconds why didn t you create grey level images and display them for time slices this requires the same total exposure time and the same precision in timing but drastically reduces the image preparation time no kenneth sloan computer and information sciences sloan cis uab edu university of alabama at birmingham a campbell hall uab station fax birmingham al
comp.graphics	re rumours about do in article h p s g zola esd sgi com erik westworld esd sgi com erik fortune writes better than cdi much better than cdi of course i do not agree it does have more horsepower horsepower is not the only measurement for better it does not have full motion full screen video yet does it have cd rom xa starting in the quarter of the first do multiplayer will be manufactured by panasonic and will be available late this year a number of other manufacturers are reported to have do compatible boxes in the works which other manufacturers we shall see about the date all this information is third hand or so and worth what you paid for it this is second hand but it still hard to look to the future lex van sonderen lex aimla com philips interactive media
comp.graphics	visuallib d graphics for windows i am currently looking for a d graphics library that runs on ms windows are there any such libraries out there other than visuallib it must run on vga and should not require any other add on graphics cards for visuallib will it run with metaware high c compiler v any email contact for the author of visuallib any help would be much appreciated thanks chua teck joo information technology institute email teckjoo iti gov sg science park drive phone singapore fax
comp.graphics	graphics library package hi all i am looking for a recommandation on a good royalty free graphics library package for c and c program this is mainly use to write children games and education software i heard someone mentioned genus and also gfx are they any good please pardon me if my question sounds a little strange i am asking this question for a friend thanks in advance caroline tsang cst garfield catt ncsu edu
comp.graphics	re rumours about do in article c eyz ix optimla aimla com lex optimla aimla com lex van sonderen writes in article h p s g zola esd sgi com erik westworld esd sgi com erik fortune writes better than cdi much better than cdi of course i do not agree it does have more horsepower horsepower is not the only measurement for better it does not have full motion full screen video yet does it have cd rom xa starting in the quarter of the first do multiplayer will be manufactured by panasonic and will be available late this year a number of other manufacturers are reported to have do compatible boxes in the works which other manufacturers we shall see about the date a do marketing rep recently offered a phillips marketing rep a bet that do would have boxes on the market on schedule the phillips rep declined the bet probably because he knew that do players are already in pre production manufacturing runs months before the commercial release date by the time of commercial release there will be other manufacturers of do players announced and possibly already tooling up production chip sets will be in full production the number of software companies designing titles for the box will be over how do i know this i was at a bar down the road from do headquarters last week some folks were bullshitting a little too loudly about company business all this information is third hand or so and worth what you paid for it this is second hand but it still hard to look to the future lex van sonderen lex aimla com philips interactive media what an impartial source
comp.graphics	re graphics library package 
comp.graphics	wanted sird alogorythmn hi i m interested in writing a program to generate a sird picture you know the stereogram where you cross your eyes and the picture becomes d does anyone have one or know where i can get one please e mail to steveq sndcrft dialix oz au with any replies many thanks for your help steve q
comp.graphics	any graphics packages available for aix does anybody know if there are any good d graphics packages available for ibm rs aix i m looking for something like dec s gks or hewlett packards starbase both of which have reasonably good support for different output devices like plotters terminals x etc i have tried also xgks from x distribution and ibm s implementation of phigs both of them work but we require more output devices than just x windows our salesman at ibm was not very familiar with graphics and i am not expecting for any good solutions from there ari ari suutari ari carel fi carelcomp oy lappeenranta finland
comp.graphics	re bw hardcopy of colored window mars ixos de martin stein writes i use xwd xpr from the x r dist and various programs of the ppm tools to print hardcopies of colored x windows my problem is i don t like xpr it gives at least the x r version does louzy output the hardcopy looks very grainy to me instead i use pnmtops this takes full advantage postscript and lets the printer do the dirty job of dithering a graylevel image to black and white dots so if you have a postscript printer try xwdtopnm xwdfile convert to ppm ppmtopgm to graylevel for smaller file to print pnmtops noturn to postscript lpr print pnmtops has several neat options but use them with care if you want your image to be wide use pnmtops noturn scale width noturn prevents the image from being rotated if it is wider than it is high width specifies the paper width not the image width see below scale is used because if the image is small it may fit within a width less than and will thus be printed smaller than wide if you first scale it up a lot it will certainly not fit in and will be scaled down by pnmtops automatically to fit the specified paper width in short pnmtops will scale an image down to fit the paper size but it will not blow it up automatically hope this helps marcel x marcel wijkstra aio wijkstra fwi uva nl x faculty of mathematics and computer science x university of amsterdam the netherlands life stinks fortunately i ve got a cold
comp.graphics	re more gray levels out of the screen in article apr cis uab edu sloan cis uab edu kenneth sloan writes why didn t you create grey level images and display them for time slices by grey level images you mean items of bit images it does work but it doesn t work if you have more than bit in your screen and if the screen intensity is non linear with bit per pixel there could be c c timing this gives levels but they are linear if screen intensity is linear with c c it works but we have to find the best compinations there s levels but choises best must be chosen different compinations for the same level varies a bit but the levels keeps their order readers should verify what i wrote juhana kouhia
comp.graphics	looking for ctds i can t find ctds connect the dots smoother in france if it is a commercial program i ll happily pay whatever it may cost do not take it litterally please help i have lots of pov sources texture images and animations though if you are looking for something just tell
comp.graphics	re pov previewer actually i am trying to write something like this but i encounter some problems amongst them drawing a d wireframe view of a quadric quartic requires that you have the explicit equation of the quadric quartic x y z functions of some parameters how to convert the implicit equation used by pov to an explicit one is it mathematically always possible i don t have enough math to find out by myself has anybody heard about useful books on the subject
comp.graphics	re real time graphics in article c va r kk taurus cs nps navy mil stockel oahu oc nps navy mil jim stockel writes hi i will be writing a data acquisition program to collect data from a variety of sources including rs and external a d s and i would like to be able to display the data in near realtime i ve done this type of thing on pc s and other machines but i am unaware of any graphics package that could help me with this on a unix machine does anyone have any ideas on commercial or free packages that might suit my needs i would really appreciate any input i m sure this has been done many times before for a commerical package try wave from precision visuals for a free package try khoros from university of new mexico ftp from ptrg eece unm edu login in anonyomus or ftp with a valid email address as the password cd pub khoros release that will get you to the right place david
comp.graphics	bgi drivers for svga i require bgi drivers for super vga displays and super xvga displays does anyone know where i could obtain the relevant drivers ftp sites regards simon crowe
comp.graphics	re vesa on the speedstar kjb mgl uvesa zip this is a universal vesa driver it supports most video boards chipsets include the speedstar and x up to bit color terry p s i ve tried it on a speedstar and x and it works not with all software for instance it doesn t work at all with animator pro from autodesk it can t detect any svga modes when running univesa this is really a problem as we need a vesa driver for both aa pro and some hi color stuff just out of curiosity are you using the latest version versions previous to this did not fill in all of the capabilities bits and other information correctly i had problems with a lot of software until i got this version i don t think the author got around to posting an announcementof it or at least i missed it but was available in the directory indicated as of i sure did use version it works fine with most software but not with animator pro and that one is quite important to me pretty useless program without that thing working imho so i hope the author can fix that daniel daniel falk don t quote me no comments ebenezum the great wizard d fad tekn hj se d fad hjds hj se also known as the mega famous musician jkpg sweeeeeden leinad of the yellow ones
comp.graphics	none set bear with me i m new at this game but could anyone explain exactly what dmorf does does it simply fade one bitmap into another or does it re shape one bitma p into another please excuse my ignorance i not even sure if i ve posted thi s message correctly
comp.graphics	help wanted for dmorf please bear with me as i am new at this game i apologize unreservedly if i hav e posted another message earlier by mistake but i digress could anyone out th ere please explain exactly what dmorf does dtax exe does it simply fade one bitmap into another or does it reshape one bitmap into another excuse my ignor ance
comp.graphics	test sorry 
comp.graphics	re rumours about do they need a hit software product to encourage software sales of the product i e the pong pacman visicalc dbase or pagemaker of multi media there are some multi media and digital television products out there already albeit not as capable as do s but are there compelling reasons to buy such yet perhaps someone in this news group will write that hit software
comp.graphics	technical help sought hi i am in immediate need for details of various graphics compression techniques so if you know where i could obtain descriptions of algo rithms or public domain source codes for such formats as jpeg gif and fractals i would be immensely grateful if you could share the info with me this is for a project i am contemplating of doing thanks in advance please reply via e mail if possible hbj
comp.graphics	surface normal orientations some rendering programs require that all surface normals point in the same direction ie on a closed cube all normals point outwards you can use the points on the faces to determine the direction of the normal by making sure that all points are either in clockwise or counter clockwise order how do you go about orienting all normals in the same direction given a set of points edges and faces say that you had a cube with all faces that have their normals facing outwards except for one face what s the best way to realize that face is flipped and should have it s points re ordered i thought i had a good way of telling this but then realized that the algorithm i had would only tell you if you had points in clockwise order for a d polygon i d like something for d data any hints tips references would be appreciated steve where humor is concerned there are no standards no one can say what is good or bad although you can be sure that everyone will john kenneth galbraith these opinions are my own
comp.graphics	re graphics library package wgt is the wordup graphics toolkit designed by yours truly and my co programmer and brother chris egerter it is a turbo borland c graphics library for programming in vga we are currently producing it as shareware but in a few years it may be a commercial product excuse typos there s no backspace on this terminal features include loading and saving bit images called blocks from herein flipping resizing and warping blocks loading and saving palette fading several in memory at once graphics primitives such as line circle bar rectangle region fill not the usually useless floodfill sprites animated bitmaps up to onscreen at once joystick mouse support sb support voc and cmf tile based game creation using pixel tiles to create a tile map or game world like in duke nuke em number of sprites increased to professional sprite creator utility and map maker routines to simplify scrolling games using maps etc fli playing routines sprites can be animated over the fli while playing pcx support soon gif ems xms coming soon as well leave e mail to barry egerter at egerter obelix gaul csd uwo ca files available on use mget wgt zip simtel and mirrors pd msdos turbo c nic funet fi pub msdos games programming some sites may not have recent files contact me for info regarding the up to date information
comp.graphics	re signature image database contact signaware corp original memo bcc vincent wall from imaging club subject signature verification date sent sci image processing from yyqi ece arizona edu yingyong qi subject signature image database organization u of arizona electrical and computer engineering hi all could someone tell me if there is a database of handwriting signature images available for evaluating signature verification systems thanks yy
comp.graphics	re surface normal orientations in article apr cis uab edu sloan cis uab edu kenneth sloan writes a brilliant algorithm not seriously it s correct up to a sign change the flaw is obvious and will therefore not be shown sorry about that kenneth sloan computer and information sciences sloan cis uab edu university of alabama at birmingham a campbell hall uab station fax birmingham al
comp.graphics	re genoa blitz hits x x ni i am sorry but this genoa card does nothing that the ati ultra plus mb can t do plus the ati costs us street price
comp.graphics	re surface normal orientations in article pscti aqe travis csd harris com srp travis csd harris com stephen pietrowicz writes how do you go about orienting all normals in the same direction given a set of points edges and faces look for edge inconsistencies consider two vertices p and q which are connected by at least one edge if p q is an edge then q p should not appear if both p q and q p appear as edges then the surface flips when you travel across that edge this is bad assuming warning warning warning that you have an otherwise acceptable surface you can pick an edge any edge and traverse the surface enforcing consistency with that edge pick an edge p q and mark it as ok for each face f containing this edge if more than oops make sure that all edges in f are consistent i e the face should be p q q r r s s t t p flip those which are wrong mark all of the edges in f as ok and add them to a queue check for duplicates and especially inconsistencies don t let the queue have both p q and q p remove an edge from the queue and go to if a marked edge is discovered to be inconsistent then you lose if step finds more than one face sharing a particular edge then you lose otherwise when done all of the edges will be consistent which means that all of the surface normals will either point in or out deciding which way is out is left as an exercise kenneth sloan computer and information sciences sloan cis uab edu university of alabama at birmingham a campbell hall uab station fax birmingham al
comp.graphics	re surface normal orientations in pscti aqe travis csd harris com srp travis csd harris com stephen pietrowicz writes how do you go about orienting all normals in the same direction given a set of points edges and faces this algorithm works well for me algorithm to attempt to find outward facing normals first mark all faces as unknown then create an edge dictionary that allows you to find all of the faces sharing a given edge where an edge is two integers representing the two shared vertices pick an arbitrary face and mark it counter clockwise using the edge dictionary orient all surrounding faces based on the orientation of this face and recurse for all surrounding faces consistently orienting the entire surface find the average of the vertices in this surface using that point calculate a volume measurement taking into account the face s orientation if the volume turns out to be positive assume the faces are oriented correctly if it is negative reverse their orientations mark them clockwise if any faces are still unknown after this choose another face and go through the algorithm again at the end faces marked clockwise must have their indices reversed before facet normals are found note if you are running on silicon graphics machines and buy the iris inventor d toolkit developers package you have the source to this algorithm see usr src inventor tools ivnorm if you re not sorry i can t give out the source and even if i could it relies heavily on inventor gavin gavin sgi com
comp.graphics	re million vs thousand colors andrey cco caltech edu andre t yew writes d hh dtek chalmers se henrik harmsen writes bits per r g b gives horrible machbanding visible in almost any picture bits per r g b colors gives visible machbanding color gradient picture has almost no machbanding this color resolution is see some small machbanding on the smooth color gradient picture but all in all there are situiations where you get visible mach banding even in a bit card if you create a very smooth color gradient of dark green white yellow or something and turn up the contrast on the monitor you will probably see some mach banding while i don t mean to damn henrik s attempt to be helpful here he s using a common misconception that should be corrected mach banding will occur for any image it is not the color quantization you see when you don t have enough bits it is the human eye s response to transitions or edges between intensities the result is that colors near the transistion look brighter on the brighter side and darker on the darker side andre yeah of course the term mach banding was not the correct one it should ve been color quantization effect although a bad color quantization effect could result in some visible mach bands on a picture that was smooth before it was quantizised henrik harmsen internet d hh dtek chalmers se chalmers university of technology sweden i haven t lost my mind it s backed up on tape somewhere
comp.graphics	re real time graphics in article apr falcon aamrl wpafb af mil dsnyder falcon aamrl wpafb af mil writes in article c va r kk taurus cs nps navy mil stockel oahu oc nps navy mil jim stockel writes hi opps typed in the phone numbers wrong here are the correct numbers for a commerical package try wave from precision visuals for a free package try khoros from university of new mexico ftp from ptrg eece unm edu login in anonyomus or ftp with a valid email address as the password cd pub khoros release
comp.graphics	iges viewer for dos windows anybody know of an iges viewer for dos windows i need to be able to display computervision iges files on a pc running windows thanks in advance brian h safford email bsaffo cad gmeds com electronic data systems phone note the views and opinions expressed herein are mine and do not reflect those of electronic data systems corp
comp.graphics	computer graphics to vcr help my friend and i have a class project in which we are trying to make a computer animated movie of sorts with the disney animation and would like to put what we have on a vcr is this possible is it easy and relatively cheap if so how we both have ibm compatibles but are relatively clueless with computers if you could help please do thanx brant ritter moshing a cosmic cesspool of physical delight a kiedas rhcp
comp.graphics	stereoscopic imaging i am interested in any information on stereoscopic imaging on a sun workstation for the most part i need to know if there is any hardware available to interface the system and whether the refresh rates are sufficient to produce quality image representations any information about the subject would be greatly appreciated thanks
comp.graphics	re fractals what good are they in article pdxgate uucp idr rigel cs pdx edu ian d romanick writes one thing a small change in initial conditions can cause a huge change in final conditions there are certain things about the way the plate tektoniks and volcanic activity effect a land scape that is while not entirely random unpredictable this is also true with fractals so one could also conclude that you could model this fractally yeah and it s also true most long complicated sequences of events calculations or big computer programs in general i don t argue that you can get similar and maybe useful results from fractals i just question whether you should the fractal fiends seem to be saying that any part of a system that we can t model should be replaced with a random number generator that has been useful for instance in making data more palatable to human perception or for torture testing the rest of the system but i don t think it has much to do with fractals and i certainly would rather that the model be improved in a more explicable manner i guess i just haven t seen all these earth shaking fractal models that explain and correlate to the universe as it actually exists i really hope i do but i m not holding my self similar breath there is one other thing that fractals are good for fractal image compression uh huh i ll believe it when i see it i ve been chasing fractal compression for a few years and i still don t believe in it if it s so great how come we don t see it competing with jpeg cause it can t i ll wager actually i have wagered i quit trying to make fractal compression work and i was trying because i don t think it s a reasonable alternative to other techniques it is neat though i ll reiterate my disbelief that everything is fractal that s why i don t think fractal compression as it is widely explained is practical i know barnsley and sloan have some tricks up their sleeves that make their demos work but i don t see anyone using it in a real product it s been six years since iterated systems was formed right there are always going to be questions until there s a product out there sloan replies the company plans to ship its first encoding devices in the summer he says in march iterated systems will have the other half of the system the decoders scientific american march page allen b don t even get me started
comp.graphics	complex i e with real and imaginary parts bio medical images are complex bio medical images available anywhere on the net for experimentation by complex i mean that every sampled data point has a magnitude and phase information both thanks for any pointers vishwa
comp.graphics	mpeg for ms dos does anyone know where i can ftp mpeg for dos from thanks for any help in advance email is preferred but posting is fine scott lord soth knight email to lordsoth uiuc of the black rose next to sas sumter cso uiuc edu i have no clue what i want to say in here so i won t say anything
comp.graphics	help i need a complete list of all the polygons that there are in order i ll summarize to the net if only i had been compiled with the g option
comp.graphics	re help colors display in c you ll probably have to set the palette up before you try drawing in the new colours use the bios interrupt calls to set the r g b values in the range from for most cards for a particular palette colour in the range from for colour modes then you should be able to draw pixels in those palette values and the result should be ok you might have to do a bit of colourmap compressing if you have more than unique rgb triplets for a colour mode geoff thomas geoffrey cosc canterbury ac nz computer science dept university of canterbury private bag christchurch oook new zealand
comp.graphics	re rumours about do stgprao st unocal com richard ottolini writes they need a hit software product to encourage software sales of the product i e the pong pacman visicalc dbase or pagemaker of multi media there are some multi media and digital television products out there already albeit not as capable as do s but are there compelling reasons to buy such yet perhaps someone in this news group will write that hit software i ve just had the good fortune to be hired by electronic arts as senior computer graphics artist at the vancouver canada office the timing has a lot to do with the do which ea is putting a lot of resources into i do not know of any titles to be developed as yet but will be happy to post as things develop i start there may markus tessmann
comp.graphics	re quicktime movie available in article johnsh mustang stu rpi edu i wrote i ve used the recently released macintosh application mpeg to quicktime to convert the excellent mpeg canyon mpg into a quicktime movie while anyone who would want this movie is perfectly able to convert it themselves i thought i d let the net know that i d be glad to mail copies of mine out the movie conversion took close to six hours on my poor little iicx in other words unless you ve got a quadra you might not want to tie up your machine in converting this file the movie is a fast fly through of a fractal generated canyon landscape the movie is seconds long and uses the compact video compressor i e quicktime v the movie looks okay on bit displays and looks absolutely awesome on and bit displays i d be happy to mail this movie to the first or so people who ask for it the only caveat is you need to be able to receive a nine megabyte mail message the movie was stuff it ed down to seven megs but binhex ruined that party if more then people want this movie then it s just more evidence that the net needs a dedicated quicktime ftp archive site c mon someone s gotta have a spare gb drive out there okay i ve received a whole lot of requests for the movie so for simplicity s sake i can t mail out any more than i ve already received as of edt tuesday maybe it ll pop up on a site sooner or later hugh johnson johnsh rpi edu rensselaer polytechnic institute welcome to macintosh troy new york usa
comp.graphics	qc msc code to view save images dear binary newsers i am looking for quick c or microsoft c code for image decoding from file for vga viewing and saving images from to gif tiff pcx or jpeg format i have scoured the internet but its like trying to find a dr seuss spell checker tsr it must be out there and there s no need to reinvent the wheel thanx in advance the internet is like a black hole
comp.graphics	autocad tiff can it be done hello i realize that this might be a faq but i have to ask since i don t get a change to read this newsgroup very often anyways for my senior project i need to convert an autocad file to a tiff file please i don t need anyone telling me that the autocad file is a vector file and the tiff is a bit map since i have heard that about times already i would just like to know if anyone knows how to do this or at least point me to the right direction any help greatly appreciated matt georgy
comp.graphics	gamma law correction hi i am digitizing a ntsc signal and displaying on a pc video monitor it is known that the display response of tubes is non linear and is sometimes said to follow gamma law i am not certain if these non linearities are gamma corrected before encoding ntsc signals or if the tv display is supposed to correct this also if grey levels for example are coded in a c program do these intensity levels appear with linear brightness on a pc monitor in other words does pc monitor display circuitry correct for gamma errrors your response is much appreciated amjad amjad soomro ccs computer science center u of maryland at college park email amjad wam umd edu
comp.graphics	mpeg for x windows mono needed hello and thank you for reading this request i have a mpeg viewer for x windows and it did not run because i was running it on a monochrome monitor i need the mono driver for mpeg play please post the location of the file or better yet e mail me at mlee eng sdsu edu
comp.graphics	re thining algorithm in article q innmi shelley u washington edu kshin stein u washington edu kevin shin writes i am trying obtain program to preprocess handwriting characters like thining algorithm graph alogrithm do anyone know where i can obtain those i usually use algorithms for graphics and image processing by theodosios pavlidis but other people here got them same idea and now of copies in the libraries have been stolen another reference is digital image processing by gonzalez and wintz wood which is widely available but a little expensive here i just checked today ab
comp.graphics	re tiff philosophical significance of in article apr galki toppoint de ulrich galki toppoint de writes according to the tiff specification the tiff version number bytes has been chosen for its deep philosophical significance last week i read the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is this actually how they picked the number i m sure it is and i am not amused every time i read that part of the tiff spec it infuriates me and i m none too happy about the complexity of the spec anyway because i think their arbitrary but carefully chosen number is neither additionally i find their choice of bytes to begin a file with meaningless of themselves why not just use the letters tiff and no i don t think they should have bothered to support both word orders either and i ve found that many tiff readers actually don t ab
comp.graphics	re vga x graphics mode gchen essex ecn uoknor edu writes in article c doh ai constellation ecn uoknor edu greetings does anybody know if it is possible to set vga graphics mode to x instead of x any info is appreciated some vesa bios s support this mode x and any vga should be able to support this x by colors since it only requires bytes my a vesa tsr supports this it s the only vesa mode by card can support due to a restrictions a wd paradise i am not responsible for anything i do or say i m just an opinion robert j c kyanko rob rjck uucp
comp.graphics	re weitek p abraxis iastate edu writes in article abraxis class iastate edu anyone know about the weitek p graphics chip micron is selling it with their systems they rank them at winmarks any info would help thanks it s supposedly a high performance chip based upon workstation graphics accelerators it s quite fast i have but as usual with new boards chips the drivers are buggy for windows as far as winmarks go it depends upon the version i think i got m winmarks with version yielded the number i ve also benchmarked this with wintach at over from memory as well as far as the low level stuff goes it looks pretty nice it s got this quadrilateral fill command that requires just the four points it s very fast but beware of buggy drivers and otherwise no non windows support i am not responsible for anything i do or say i m just an opinion robert j c kyanko rob rjck uucp
comp.graphics	re delaunay triangulation in article lsk v inn c caspian usc edu zyeh caspian usc edu zhenghao yeh writes does anybody know what delaunay triangulation is is there any reference to it is it useful for creating d objects if yes what s the advantage it is used to create a tin triangulated irregular network which is basically a bunch of triangles which form a surface over a group of points what is special about it is that the triangles formed are the most equalateral possible check out proceedings of autocarto n where n is sorry i don t have a specific reference describing the process michael
comp.graphics	graphic formats i am writing some utilies to convert regis and tektonic esacpe sequences into some useful formats i would rather not have to goto a bitmap format i can convert them to window meta files easily enough but i would rather convert them to corel draw cdr or ms power point ppt files microsoft would not give me the format i was wondering if anybody out there knows the formats for these two applications
comp.graphics	re nice gif code there is a thing called xgif xgif is the grandfather of xv
comp.graphics	re rumours about do archer archer bad cop surly archer elysium esd sgi com archer how about interactive sex with madonna or sexium for short lars lars fischer fischer iesd auc dk it takes an uncommon mind to think of cs dept aalborg univ denmark these things calvin
comp.graphics	re forms for curses note the followup to header steelem rintintin colorado edu steele mark a writes is there a collection of forms routines that can be used with curses if so where is it located on my svr amiga unix box i ve got lform lmenu and lpanel for use with the curses library guess what they provide unix press ie prentice hall has a programmer s guide for these tools referred to as the fmli forms mgmt language interface and eti extended terminal interface now in it s nd edition it is isbn paraphrased from the outside back cover fmli is a high level programming tool for creating menus forms and text frames eti is a set of screen management library subroutines that promote fast development of application programs for window panel menu and form manipulation the fmli is a shell package which reads ascii text files and produces screen displays for data entry and presentation it consists of a shell like environment of the fmli program and it s database files it is section f in the unix press manual the eti are subroutines part of the x manual section provide support for a multi window capability on an ordinary ascii terminal with controls built on top of the curses library thanks mark steele steelem rintintin colorado edu frank crash edwards edwards edwards consulting voice crash ckctpa myrddin sybus com but please data don t ask uunet to route it it s sloooow there will be times in life when everyone you meet smiles and pats you on the back and tells you how great you are so hold on to your wallet
comp.graphics	re trying to view pov files merkelbd sage cc purdue edu brian merkel writes in article apr ornl gov ednobles sacam oren ortn edu edward d nobles writes i ve been trying to view tga files created in povray i have the diamond speedstar video board not the x so far i can convert them to jpeg using cjpeg and view them with cview but that only displays bit color i m looking for some way to convert and or view them in bit i have univesa uvesa zip and the dvpeg viewer but i don t get anything perhaps i am not setting up univesa properly if anyone has ideas about this please feel free to enlighten me just want to see the darn things in real color image alchemy aka alchemy will view the tga files that pov outputs and just about any other format you can think of it will also convert between all these it s shareware so it s probably available by ftp somwhere out there in netland yep alchemy works fine on my tseng dac but i think i remember reading that it only displays in bit or so of course that s still k colors which is nothing to sneeze at use the v flag neal miller why not go mad millernw craft camp clarkson edu clarkson university ford prefect dark craft camp clarkson edu
comp.graphics	hot new d software there is a new product for the ibm ers out there it is called imagine and it just started shipping yesterday i can personally attest that it will blow the doors off of d studio it is made by impulse and is in its rd version st for the ibm it can do morphing your standard key framming animation it is a raytracer reflections shadows and can do apply special fx to objects like ripple explode bounce things of that nature also it has algorithmic texture maps and your standard brushmapping also you can have animated brushmaps ie live video mapped on the objs also animated backdrops ie live video backgrounds also animted reflections maps you get the idea it will run for about retail i think dont let the low price fool you this product can do it all when it comes to d animation and renderering also does anyone here know how to get in the imagine mailing list please e mail me if you do or post up here oh the number for impulse is trb ra msstate edu
comp.graphics	re hot new d software in a previous article trb ra msstate edu tony r boutwell says there is a new product for the ibm ers out there it is called imagine and it just started shipping yesterday i can personally attest that it will blow the doors off of d studio it is made by impulse and is in its well i don t know about its competing with d studio but it s pretty powerful allright also does anyone here know how to get in the imagine mailing list please e mail me if you do or post up here yes send e mail to imagine request email sp paramax com with a header of something like subscribe i actually work on the faq frequently asked questions we should have the new version out of it by next week but if you want i could e mail you the previous one it details what the list is etc as well as answering basic questions about imagine hope this helps michael b comet software engineer graphics artist cwru mbc po cwru edu silence those who oppose the freedom of speech
comp.graphics	re vga x graphics mode in article snx rjck uucp rob rjck uucp robert j c kyanko writes gchen essex ecn uoknor edu writes in article c doh ai constellation ecn uoknor edu greetings does anybody know if it is possible to set vga graphics mode to x instead of x any info is appreciated some vesa bios s support this mode x and any vga should be able to support this x by colors since it only requires bytes my a vesa tsr supports this it s the only vesa mode by card can support due to a restrictions a wd paradise i am not responsible for anything i do or say i m just an opinion robert j c kyanko rob rjck uucp ahh no possibly you punched in the wrong numbers on your calculator color modes take a byte per pixel so time is which is k to be exact x x only takes k but i don t think it is a bios mode i wouldn t bet that all vga cards can do that either if a vga card has k i bet it can do both x and x that by definition is svga though not very high svga
comp.graphics	tin files coutours hi i am working on a project that needs to create contour lines from random data points the work that i have done so far tells me that i need to look into triangulated irregular networks tin the delauney criiterion and the krige method does anyone have any suggestions for references programs and hopefully source code for creating contours any help with this or any surface modeling would be greatly appreciated i can be reached at the addresses below paul conway pvconway copper denver colorado edu pvconway cudnvr denver colorado edu
comp.graphics	apr toronto siggraph event toronto siggraph what chance s art d graphics and animation on the indigo by ken evans imagicians artware inc when tuesday april pm pm where the mcluhan centre for culture and technology university of toronto a queen s park crescent toronto who members and non members alike non members encouraged to become members abstract imagicians artware inc is entering into early beta site testing on silicon graphics workstations of a new d abstract artwork and animation package called chance s art the package will be described and demonstrated and some of the technical issues will be discussed marketing plans will be outlined the talk will also present some of the technical and business problems increasingly confronting small startup software companies today and some of the opportunities this situation presents time after the event will be allocated for hands on demonstrations to interested parties silicon graphics is graciously providing an indigo for this event myck kupka will also be demonstrating his computerized interactive reflective stereoscope which is installed upstairs in the mcluhan centre so feel free to drop by for a demonstration before or after the event btw be sure to sing happy birthday myck the names of nominees for our siggraph executive offices will be announced at this meeting nominations will still be open until the election at our may th event call myck kupka at or fax to directions the mcluhan coachhouse is on the east side of queen s park crescent just north of wellesley south of st joseph st behind east of queen s park crescent which is the centre for mediaeval studies for information on toronto siggraph membership contact michael mccool via internet mccool dgp utoronto ca voice fax
comp.graphics	re delaunay triangulation zyeh caspian usc edu zhenghao yeh writes does anybody know what delaunay triangulation is is there any reference to it the delaunay triangulation is the geometrical dual of the voronoi tessellation and both constructions are derived from natural neighbor order aurenhammer f voronoi diagrams a survey of a fundamental geometric data structure acm computing surveys p okabe a boots b and sugihara k spatial tessellations concepts and applications of voronoi diagrams wiley sons new york isbn p watson d f computing the n dimensional delaunay tessellation with application to voronoi polytopes the computer j p watson d f natural neighbour sorting the australian computer j p dave watson internet watson maths uwa edu au department of mathematics the university of western australia tel nedlands wa australia fax
comp.graphics	ansi aiim ms standard image file format wing the suggestion of stu lynne i have posted the image file format executable and source code to alt sources herman silbiger
comp.graphics	re trying to view pov files in article apr ornl gov ednobles sacam oren ortn edu edward d nobles writes i ve been trying to view tga files created in povray i have the diamond speedstar video board not the x so far i can convert them to jpeg using cjpeg and view them with cview but that only displays bit color i m looking for some way to convert and or view them in bit just want to see the darn things in real color thanks jim nobles the best program i ve seen for viewing such files is vpic you ll want version or later x is current it allows you to view in and bit modes it really is quite nice now for a return question do you run windows if so what are the dates on your drivers the newest ones i can find are from around my problem is they conflict with star trek after dark and other things as well i m willing to bet that it s the drivers and not the programs anyone out there have info on newer ss not x drivers for windows or os thanks justin
comp.graphics	re looking for circle algorithm faster than bresenhams in article apr nwnexus wa com mpdillon halcyon com michael dillon writes i have an algorithm similar to bresenhams line drawing algorithm that draws a line by stepping along the minor axis and drawing slices like aaaa bbbb cccc in the following diagram aaaa bbbb cccc yes that s known as bresenhams run length slice algorithm for incremental lines see fundamental algorithms for computer graphics springer verlag berlin heidelberg i have tried to extrapolate this to circles but i can t figure out how to determine the length of the slices any ideas hmm i don t think i can help you with this but you might take a look at the following double step incremental generation of lines and circles x wu and j g rokne computer graphics and image processing vol no mar pp double step generation of ellipses x wu and j g rokne ieee computer graphics applications may pp graeme gill
comp.graphics	e mail of michael abrash 
comp.graphics	fonts in pov i have seen several ray traced scenes from mtv or was it rayshade with stroked fonts appearing as objects in the image the fonts chars had color depth and even textures associated with them now i was wondering is it possible to do the same in pov thanks noel
comp.graphics	polygon reduction for marching cubes dear reader i am searching for an implementation of a polygon reduction algorithm for marching cubes surfaces i think the best one is the reduction algorithm from schroeder et al siggraph so is there any implementation of this algorithm it would be very nice if you could leave it to me also i am looking for a fast connectivity test for marching cubes surfaces any help or hints will be very useful thanks a lot o o ooo ooo erwin keeve adress peter welter platz w cologne germany dept of computergraphics phone computeranimation fax academy of media arts cologne email keeve khm uni koeln de
comp.graphics	dmpeg zip info another dos mpeg decoder player posted i have posted a dos mpeg decoder player to alt binaries pictures utilities here is a short description and some technical information taken from the accompanying documentation dmpeg v public domain mpeg decoder by stefan eckart features dmpeg dmplay is another mpeg decoder player for the pc decodes nearly the full mpeg video standard i p b frames frame size up to at least x supported saves decoded sequence in or bit raw file for later display optional on screen display during decoding requires vga several dithering options ordered dither floyd steinberg grayscale color space selection runs under dos kb ram no ms windows required very compact small code small data models bit arithmetic real time display of the raw file by a separate player for vga and many super vgas technical information the player is a rather straightforward implementation of the mpeg spec the idct is based on the chen wang multiplication algorithm not quite the optimum i know blocks with not more than eight non zero coefficients use a non separated direct multiply accumulate d idct sounds great doesn t it which turned out to be faster than a fast algorithm in this quite common case dithering is pretty standard main difference to the berkeley decoder except for the fewer number of supported algorithms is the use of instead of colors the default option to use a restricted color space and the implementation of a color saturation dominant ordered dither this leads to a significantly superior quality of the dithered image i claim judge yourself restricted color space means that the u and v components are clipped to instead of and the display color space points are distributed over this restricted space since the distance between color space points is thus reduced by a factor of two the color resolution is doubled at the expense of not being able to represent fully saturated colors saturation dominant ordered dither is a method by which a color lying somewhere between the points of the display color space is approximated by primarily alternating between two points of constant hue instead of constant saturation this yields subjectivly better quality due to the lower sensitivity of the human viewing system to saturation changes than to hue changes the same reasoning as used by the pal tv standard to improve on ntsc the improvement is particularly visible in dark brown or redish areas stefan eckart stefan lis e technik tu muenchen de
comp.graphics	point within a polygon i am looking for an algorithm to determine if a given point is bound by a polygon does anyone have any such code or a reference to book containing information on the subject regards simon
comp.graphics	pov reboots pc after memory upgrade up until last week i have been running povray v on my under dos without any major problems over easter i increased the memory from meg to meg and found that povray reboots the system every time under dos i had a go at running povray in a dos window when running win on the same system and it now works fine even if a lot slower i would like to go back to using povray directly under dos anyone any ideas john john heaton nrs central administrator mcc network unit the university oxford road manchester m pl phone fax packet g yyh g yyh gb pwy gbr eu
comp.graphics	good shareware paint and or animation software for sgi does anyone know of any good shareware animation or paint software for an sgi machine i ve exhausted everyplace on the net i can find and still don t hava a nice piece of software thanks alot chad knock knock chad cipiti who s there af cleveland freenet edu cipiti bobcat ent ohiou edu it might be heisenberg chad voxel zool ohiou edu
comp.graphics	processing of stereo images i m interested in find out what is involved in processing pairs of stereo photographs i have black and white photos and would like to obtain surface contours i d prefer to do the processing on an sgi but would be interested in hearing what software hardware is used for this type of image processing please email and or post to comp sys sgi graphics your responses thanks dane hendrix email dane wizard dt navy mil dtmb a k a headquarters carderock div or hendrix oasys dt navy mil naval surface warfare center or hendrix nas nasa gov code bethesda md phone
comp.graphics	re weitek p robert j c kyanko rob rjck uucp wrote abraxis iastate edu writes in article abraxis class iastate edu anyone know about the weitek p graphics chip as far as the low level stuff goes it looks pretty nice it s got this quadrilateral fill command that requires just the four points do you have weitek s address phone number i d like to get some information about this chip joe green harris corporation jgreen csd harris com computer systems division the only thing that really scares me is a person with no sense of humor jonathan winters
comp.graphics	sun os and bit ascii graphics i would like to know if anyone has had any luck using the upper ascii characters on a sun station i am trying to convert a fortran program to run on a sun when we write character buffers to the sun which contain char or char or char etc we get characters on the screen but they are not the characters in the standard ascii tables any ideas or help will be appreciated
comp.graphics	re looking for circle algorithm faster than bresenhams on wed apr gmt graeme labtam labtam oz au graeme gill said graeme yes that s known as bresenhams run length slice algorithm for graeme incremental lines see fundamental algorithms for computer graphics graeme springer verlag berlin heidelberg i have tried to extrapolate this to circles but i can t figure out how to determine the length of the slices any ideas graeme hmm i don t think i can help you with this but you might graeme take a look at the following graeme double step incremental generation of lines and circles graeme x wu and j g rokne computer graphics and image processing graeme vol no mar pp graeme double step generation of ellipses x wu and j g rokne graeme ieee computer graphics applications may pp another paper you might want to consider is article fungdraw title a run length slice line drawing algorithm without division operations author khun yee fung and tina m nicholl and a k dewdney journal computer graphics forum year volume number pages c c khun yee khun yee fung clipper csd uwo ca department of computer science middlesex college university of western ontario london ontario canada n a b tel fax
comp.graphics	geometry package i am looking for a package which takes as inputs a set of geometric objects defined by unions of convex polytopes specified in some manner say by inequalities and equalities and determines in some reasonable form things like intersections unions etc etc does anyone know where i can find such a thing dan naiman department of mathematical sciences johns hopkins university
comp.graphics	re point within a polygon in article apr uk bull co uk scrowe hemel bull co uk simon crowe writes i am looking for an algorithm to determine if a given point is bound by a polygon does anyone have any such code or a reference to book containing information on the subject see the article an efficient ray polygon intersection p in graphics gems isbn the second step intersecting the polygon does what you want there is sample code in the book spl steve lamont sciviguy spl szechuan ucsd edu san diego microscopy and imaging resource uc san diego la jolla ca they are not bolsheviks just bullshitviks yevgeny yevtechenko again a meeting
comp.graphics	re distance between two bezier curves pes hutcs cs hut fi pekka siltanen writes suppose two cubic bezier curves control points v v and w w which have equal first and last control points v w v w how do i get upper bound for distance between these curves which distance the distance between one point t ti on the first curve and a point on the other curve with same parameter u ti any references appreciated thanks in anvance pekka siltanen
comp.graphics	re point within a polygon scrowe hemel bull co uk simon crowe writes i am looking for an algorithm to determine if a given point is bound by a polygon does anyone have any such code or a reference to book containing information on the subject well it s been a while since this was discussed so i take the liberty of reprinting without permission so sue me eric haines reprint of the very interesting discussion of this topic jonas o o x snip snip x o o give a man a fish and he ll eat one day give a man a fishing rod and he ll laze around fishing and never do anything with that in mind i reprint without permission so sue me relevant information posted some years ago on this very problem note the early use of postscript technology predating many of this year s papers listed in the april st siggraph program announcement posted here a few days ago eric intersection between a line and a polygon undecidable by dave baraff tom duff from deb charisma graphics cornell edu newsgroups comp graphics keywords p np jordan curve separation ursyhon metrization theorem organization program of computer graphics in article ncsmith ndsuvax uucp timothy lyle smith writes i need to find a formula algorithm to determine if a line intersects a polygon i would prefer a method that would do this in as little time as possible i need this for use in a forward raytracing program i think that this is a very difficult problem to start with lines and polygons are semi algebraic sets which both contain uncountable number of points here are a few off the cuff ideas first we need to check if the line and the polygon are separated now the jordan curve separation theorem says that the polygon divides the plane into exactly two open and thus non compact regions thus the line lies completely inside the polygon the line lies completely outside the polygon or possibly but this will rarely happen the line intersects the polyon now the phrasing of this question says if a line intersects a polygon so this is a decision problem one possibility the decision model approach is to reduce the question to some other well known problem q and then try to solve q an answer to q gives an answer to the original decision problem in recent years many geometric problems have been successfully modeled in a new language called postscript see postscript language by adobe systems incorporated isbn co so given a line l and a polygon p we can write a postscript program that draws the line l and the polygon p and then outputs the answer by output we mean the program executes a command called showpage which actually prints a page of paper containing the line and the polygon a quick examination of the paper provides an answer to the reduced problem q and thus the original problem there are two small problems with this approach there is an infinite number of ways to encode l and p into the reduced problem q so we will be forced to invoke the axiom of choice or equivalently zorn s lemma but the use of the axiom of choice is not regarded in a very serious light these days more importantly the question arises as to whether or not the postscript program q will actually output a piece of paper or in other words will it halt now postscript is expressive enough to encode everything that a turing machine might do thus the halting problem for postscript is undecidable it is quite possible that the original problem will turn out to be undecidable i won t even begin to go into other difficulties such as aliasing finite precision and running out of ink paper or both a couple of references might be principia mathematica newton i cambridge university press cambridge england sorry i don t have an isbn for this an introduction to automata theory languages and computation hopcroft j and ulman j the c programming language kernighan b and ritchie d a tale of two cities dickens c from td alice uucp tom duff summary overkill organization at t bell laboratories murray hill nj the situation is not nearly as bleak as baraff suggests he should know better he s hung around the labs for long enough by the well known dobbin dullman reduction see j dullman d dobbin j comp obfusc ii pp lemma a line polygon intersection can be reduced to hamiltonian circuit without the use of grobner bases so lpi to coin an acronym is probably only np complete besides turing completeness will no longer be a problem once our cray is delivered since it will be able to complete an infinite loop in milliseconds with scatter gather from deb svax cs cornell edu david baraff well sure its no worse than np complete but that s only if you restrict yourself to the case where the line satisfies a lipschitz condition on its second derivative i think there s an siggraph paper from caltech that deals with this j o n a s y n g v e s s o n email jonas y isy liu se dept of electrical engineering voice university of linkoping sweden fax
comp.graphics	re point within a polygon in article apr uk bull co uk scrowe hemel bull co uk simon crowe writes i am looking for an algorithm to determine if a given point is bound by a polygon does anyone have any such code or a reference to book containing information on the subject regards simon basically there are two algorithms determining whether a point is inside outside or on the polygon the first one is ray or half line method in this method you can draw any ray if the number of the intersection point of the ray and the polygon is even then it is outside if the number is odd then it is inside of cause you have to deal with the special cases which may make you headache the second method is pi algorithm draw the lines between the point and all the vertices on the polygon calculate and sum the angles of the successive lines if the result is pi then it is inside if pi then it is on the polygon otherwise it is outside my experience tells the second method is relible hope this helps yeh usc
comp.graphics	re two pointing devices in one com port bob davis sonny trantor harris atd com wrote in article c tkgm v unix portal com wil shell portal com ville v walveranta writes is there any way to connect two pointing devices to one serial port i haven t tried this but i believe they would interfere with each other even if only one at a time would be used just get an a b switch for rs look in computer shopper they are available fairly cheap they allow switching between two serial devices on a single port unfortunately the poster wants to use an internal and an external modem so a switch isn t going to help them if you aren t using your com ports for anything else just define them on different com ports define your internal modem to be say com and your external modem to be com you really shouldn t have to worry about interrupt conflicts since you won t be using both modems at the same time christopher chan nui investment in reliability will increase until it channui austin ibm com exceeds the probable cost of errors or until someone include disclaimer h insists on getting some useful work done
comp.graphics	re fractals what good are they in article pdxgate uucp idr rigel cs pdx edu ian d romanick writes they talked about another routine that could yield up to to compress with no image loss that i could notice the draw back is that it takes a hell of a long time to compress something i ll have to see if i can find the book so that i can give more exact numbers ttyl that s a typical claim though they say they ve improved compression speed considerably did you find out anything else about the book i d be interested in looking at it if you could give me any pointers reportedly early fractal compression times of hours used that marvelous piece of hardware called grad students to do the work supposedly it s been automated since about but i m still waiting to be impressed allen b sign me cynical
comp.graphics	re bgi drivers for svga dominic lai cs cylai cs ust hk wrote simon crowe scrowe hemel bull co uk wrote i require bgi drivers for super vga displays and super xvga displays does anyone know where i could obtain the relevant drivers ftp sites i would like to know too regards dominic garbo uwasa fi or one of its many mirrors has a file called svgabg in the programming subdirectory these are svga bgi drivers for a variety of cards from the readme card types supported supervga drivers ahead ati chips tech everex genoa paradise oak trident both and tseng both and chipsets and video these drivers will also work on video cards with vesa capability the tweaked drivers will work on any register compatible vga card enjoy clark verbrugge clump cs mcgill ca honk honk blat wak wak wak wak wak ungow
comp.graphics	re tiff philosophical significance of in article hc mentor cc purdue edu ab nova cc purdue edu allen b writes in article apr galki toppoint de ulrich galki toppoint de writes according to the tiff specification the tiff version number bytes has been chosen for its deep philosophical significance last week i read the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is this actually how they picked the number i m sure it is and i am not amused every time i read that part of the tiff spec it infuriates me and i m none too happy about the complexity of the spec anyway because i think their arbitrary but carefully chosen number is neither additionally i find their choice of bytes to begin a file with meaningless of themselves why not just use the letters tiff and no i don t think they should have bothered to support both word orders either and i ve found that many tiff readers actually don t ab why so up tight for that matter tiff is out now so why not gripe about its problems also if its so important to you volunteer to help define or critique the spec finally a little numerology is backwards and tiff is a bit image format chris christopher p tully cptully med unc edu univ of north carolina chapel hill cb chapel hill nc i get paid for my opinions but that doesn t mean that unc or anybody else agrees with them
comp.graphics	interleaf to cgm has anyone successfully converted interleaf graphics to cgm or even heard of it being done we d love to hear about it mike mcconnell emm cray com
comp.graphics	re hollywood hits virtual reality sorry i missed you raymond i was just out in dahlgren last month i m the virtual reality market manager for silicon graphics so perhaps i can help a little in article mar relay nswc navy mil rchui nswc wo nswc navy mil raymond chui writes hello the real reality our agency started to express interest in virtual reality vr so far we do not know much about vr all we know about are the hollywood movies the terminater and lawnmover man we also know something about vr from abc news magazine and computer graphics world magazine unfortunately while sgi systems were used to create the special effects for both terminator and lawnmower man those are film quality computer graphics rendered in software and written to film a frame at a time each frame of computer animation for those films took hours to render on high end parallel processing computer systems thus that level of graphics would be difficult if not impossible to acheive in real time frames per second we certainly want to know more about vr who are the leading companies agencies universities what machines support vr i e sgi sun hp bim etc it depends upon how serious you are and how advanced your application is true immersive visualization vr requires the rendering of complex visual databases at anywhere from to newly rendered frames per second this is a similar requirement to that of traditional flight simulators for pilot training if the frame rate is too low the user notices the stepping of the frames as they move their head rapidly around the scene so the motion of the graphics is not smooth and contiguous thus the graphics system must be powerful enough to sustain high frame rates while rendering complex data representations additionally the frame rate must be constant if the system renders frames per second at one point then frames per second the next perhaps due to the scene in the new viewing direction being simpler than what was visible before the user can get heavily distracted by the medium the graphics computer rather than focusing on the data to maintain a constant frame rate the system must be able to run in real time unix in general does not support real time operation but silicon graphics has modified the unix kernel for its multi processor systems to be able to support real time operation bypassing the usual unix process priority management schemes uniprocessor systems running unix cannot fundamentally support real time operation not sun sparc not hp series systems not ibm rs not even sgi s uniprocessor systems like indigo or crimson only our multiprocessor onyx and challenge systems support real time operation due to their symmetric multi processing smp shared memory architecture from a graphics perspective rendering complex virtual environments requires advanced rendering techniques like texture mapping and real time multi sample anti aliasing of all of the general purpose graphics systems on the market today only crimson realityengine and onyx realityengine systems fully support these capabilities the anti aliasing is particularly important as the crawling jagged edges of aliased polygons is an unfortunate distraction when immersed in a virtual environment what kind of graphics languages are used with vr gl opengl phigs pex gks etc you can use the general purpose graphics libraries listed above to develop vr applications but that is starting at a pretty low level there are off the shelf software packages available to get you going much faster being targeted directly at the vr application developer some of the most popular are in no particular order division inc redwood city ca dvs sens inc sausalito ca worldtoolkit naval postgraduate school monterey ca npsnet free gemini technology corp irvine ca gvs simation series paradigm simulation inc dallas tx visionworks audioworks silicon graphics inc mountain view ca iris performer there are some others but not off the top of my head what companies are making interface devices for vr goggles or boom binocular omni orientational monitor hamlets gloves arms etc there are too many to list here but here is a smattering fake space labs menlo park ca boom virtual technologies inc stanford ca cyberglove digital image design new york ny the cricket d input kaiser electro optics carlsbad ca sim eye helmet displays virtual research sunnyvale ca flight helmet display virtual reality inc pleasantville ny head mtd displays s w software systems san jose ca d modeling software etc etc etc what are those company s addresses and phone numbers where we can get a list name of vr experts and their phone numbers and email addresses read some of the vr books on the market virtual reality ken pimental and ken texiera sp virtual mirage artificial reality myron kreuger etc or check out the newsgroup sci virtual worlds feel free to contact me for more info regards josh joshua mogal product manager advanced graphics division advanced graphics systems silicon graphics inc market manager north shoreline blvd virtual reality mountain view ca interactive entertainment m s l tel fax e mail mogal sgi com
comp.graphics	re point within a polygon in article jonas y gouraud jonas y isy liu se jonas yngvesson writes intersection between a line and a polygon undecidable by dave baraff tom duff from deb charisma graphics cornell edu in recent years many geometric problems have been successfully modeled in a new language called postscript see postscript language by adobe systems incorporated isbn co so given a line l and a polygon p we can write a postscript program that draws the line l and the polygon p and then outputs the answer by output we mean the program executes a command called showpage which actually prints a page of paper containing the line and the polygon a quick examination of the paper provides an answer to the reduced problem q and thus the original problem curiously in modern postscript the point in a polygon problem can be solved even more easily to wit title point in polygon creator allen b ab cc purdue edu for the amusement of comp graphics regulars languagelevel documentneededresource humor sense thereof endcomments this program will test whether a point is inside a given polygon currently it uses the even odd rule but that can be changed by replacing ineofill with infill these are level operators so if you ve only got level you re out of luck the result will be printed on the output stream caution only accurate to device pixels put a huge scale in first if you aren t sure point to test put x and y coordinates here vertices of polygon in counter clockwise order put array of pairs of coordinates here dup get aload pop moveto dup length dup roll sub getinterval aload pop lineto forall closepath ineofill yes no ifelse
comp.graphics	virtual reality for x on the cheap hi everyone i thought that some people may be interested in my vr software on these groups announcing the release of multiverse multiverse is a multi user non immersive x windows based virtual reality system primarily focused on entertainment research features client server based model using berkeley sockets no limit to the number of users apart from performance generic clients customizable servers hierachical objects allowing attachment of cameras and light sources multiple light sources ambient point and spot objects can have extension code to handle unique functionality easily attached functionality client the client is built around a fast render loop basically it changes things when told to by the server and then renders an image from the user s viewpoint it also provides the server with information about the user s actions which can then be communicated to other clients and therefore to other users the client is designed to be generic in other words you don t need to develop a new client when you want to enter a new world this means that resources can be spent on enhancing the client software rather than adapting it the adaptations as will be explained in a moment occur in the servers this release of the client software supports the following functionality o hierarchical objects with associated addressing o multiple light sources and types ambient point and spot o user interface panels o colour polygonal rendering with phong shading optional wireframe for faster frame rates o mouse and keyboard input some people may be disappointed that this software doesn t support the powerglove as an input device this is not because it can t but because i don t have one this will however be one of the first enhancements server s this is where customization can take place the following basic support is provided in this release for potential world server developers o transparent client management o client message handling this may not sound like much but it takes away the headache of accepting and terminating clients and receiving messages from them the application writer can work with the assumption that things are happening locally things get more interesting in the object extension functionality this is what is provided to allow you to animate your objects o server selectable extension installation what this means is that you can decide which objects have extended functionality in your world basically you call the extension initialisers you want o event handler registration when you develop extensions for an object you basically write callback functions for the events that you want the object to respond to current events supported init move change collide terminate o collision detection registration if you want your object to respond to collision events just provide some basic information to the collision detection management software your callback will be activated when a collision occurs this software is kept separate from the worldserver applications because the application developer wants to build a library of extended objects from which to choose the following is all you need to make a world server application o provide an initworld function this is where you choose what object extensions will be supported plus any initialization you want to do o provide a positionobject function this is where you determine where to place a new client o provide an installworldobjects function this is where you load the world wld file for a new client o provide a getworldtype function this is where you tell a new client what persona they should have o provide an animateworld function this is where you can go wild at a minimum you should let the objects move by calling a move function and let the server sleep for a bit to avoid outrunning the clients that s all there is to it and to prove it here are the line counts for the three world servers i ve provided generic lines dactyl lines more complicated collision detection due to the stairs will probably be improved with future versions dogfight lines location this software is located at the following site ftp u washington edu directory pub virtual worlds file multiverse tar z futures client o texture mapping o more realistic rendering i e z buffering or similar gouraud shading o hmd support o etc etc server o physical modelling gravity friction etc o enhanced object management interaction o etc etc both o improved comms i hope this provides people with a good understanding of the multiverse software unfortunately it comes with practically zero documentation and i m not sure whether that will ever be able to be rectified i hope people enjoy this software and that it is useful in our explorations of the virtual universe i ve certainly found fascinating developing it and i would love to add support for the powerglove and an hmd finally one major disclaimer this is totally amateur code by that i mean there is no support for this code other than what i out the kindness of my heart or you out of pure desperation provide i cannot be held responsible for anything good or bad that may happen through the use of this code use it at your own risk disclaimer over of course if you love it i would like to here from you and anyone with positive contributions criticisms is also encouraged to contact me anyone who hates it dev null and if anyone wants to let me do this for a living you know where to write thanks robert robert acsc com
comp.graphics	re virtual reality for x on the cheap update on location directory should be public virtual worlds sorry robert robert acsc com
comp.graphics	pcx hello help please i am a student of turbo c and graphics programming and i am having some problems finding algorithms and code to teach me how to do some stuff where is there a book or code that will teach me how to read and write pcx dbf and gif files how do i access the extra ram on my paradise video board so i can do paging in the higher vga modes ie x x x x anybody got a line on a good book to help answer these question thanks very much send reply s to palm snycanva bitnet peace be blessed be stephen palm
comp.graphics	what s a good assembly vga programming book can someone give me the title of a good vga graphics programming book please respond by email thanks yuan che yuan wang cw uxa cso uiuc edu cywang ux cso uiuc edu
comp.graphics	re fractals what good are they in regards to fractal commpression i have seen fractal compressed movies they were both fairly impressive the first one was a gray scale movie of casablanca it was mb and had minutes of fps video it was a little grainy but not bad at all the second one i saw was only minutes but it had bit color with fps and measured in at mb i consider the fractal movies a practical thing to explore but unlike many other formats out there you do end up losing resolution i don t know what kind of software hardware was used for creating the movies i saw but the guy that showed them to me said it took minutes per frame to generate but as i said above playback was or more frames per second and how else could you put minutes on one floppy disk davidr rincon ema rockwell com my opinions are my own except where they are shared by others in which case i will probably change my mind
comp.graphics	re re vga x graphics mode my a vesa tsr supports this can you report crt and other register state in this mode thank s serge ivanov serge argus msk su
comp.graphics	reaction diffusion techniques this past week i ve been playing with some of the r d reaction diffusion not to be confused with rds or r d techniques from siggraph i was wondering what material is available to explain the control mechanism a little more it seems to me very much like a matter of picking random magic numbers and sitting back and waiting although both of the papers turk and witkin kass were very well organized and extremely helpful i guess what i need is a more basic description of the technique especially wrt the control mechanisms the tests that i did had a tendency to either turn into blurry mud or become unstable is there any info available online source code would be great but not necessary thanks terran j boylan sr artist programmer it s better to have loved engineering animation inc ames ia and lost than just to have pm lost dorky dog
comp.graphics	bit graphics cards i am looking for eisa or vesa local bus graphic cards that support at least x x resolution i know matrox has one but it is very expensive all the other cards i know of that support that resoultion are striaght isa also are there any x servers for a unix pc that support bits thanks
comp.graphics	re fractal generation of clouds haabn nye nscee edu frederick j haab writes i need to implement an algorithm to fractally generate clouds as sort of a benchmark for some algorithms i m working on just as a matter of interest a self promo computer graphics sequence that one of the local tv stations used to play quite a lot a couple of years ago showed a d flyover of australia from the west coast to the east the clouds were quite recognisable as fuzzy flat white mandlebrot sets david silver
comp.graphics	please recommend d graphics library for mac hi netters i m building a cad package and need a d graphics library that can handle some rudimentry tasks such as hidden line removal shading animation etc can you please offer some recommendations i ll also need contact info name address email if you can find it thanks please post your responses in case others have same need bob carpenter
comp.graphics	re hot new d software in article qflpk re usenet ins cwru edu mbc po cwru edu michael b comet wrote in a previous article trb ra msstate edu tony r boutwell says there is a new product for the ibm ers out there it is called imagine and it just started shipping yesterday i can personally attest that it will blow the doors off of d studio it is made by impulse and is in its well i don t know about its competing with d studio but it s pretty powerful allright yes but a key issue is speed how fast is imagine and is it as easy to use as d studio can it just do a render as fast as ds if you don t want things like ior etc ds can do fine shadows animated reflection maps animated bump maps animated anything maps and with the ipas routines not that i ve ever seen them it can do explosions top quality morphing fire rain lens flares etc i m not knocking imagine i just want to know how it compares with ds
comp.graphics	raytracers which is best hi all i ve just recently become seriously hooked on pov but there are a few thing that i want to do that pov won t do penumbral shadows dispersion etc i was just wondering what other shareware freeware raytracers are out there and what can they do i ve heard of vivid and polyray and rayshade and so on but i d rather no wade through several hundred pages of manual for each trying to work out what their capabilities are can anyone help a comparison of tracing speed between each program would also be mucho useful mark mark mackey life is a terminal disease and oxygen is mmackey aqueous ml csiro au addictive are you hooked
comp.graphics	shareware recently i saw the latest computer shopper and in it there was an article on nice shareware graphics programs they looked pretty good and of the listed in the article one i had graphics workshop one i found via archie draft choice old version though and the rest i couldn t find so if there is anyone that knows where i can get the following programs via anonymous ftp please let me know adkins graphics ag zip ag zip draft choice latest vga version draftc zip envision publisher envis zip envis zip neopaint neopnt zip thanx in advance d petro david petro kwyjibo a big dumb balding dept of physics north american ape university of windsor petro server uwindsor ca
comp.graphics	re please recommend d graphics library for mac robert g carpenter writes hi netters i m building a cad package and need a d graphics library that can handle some rudimentry tasks such as hidden line removal shading animation etc can you please offer some recommendations i ll also need contact info name address email if you can find it thanks please post your responses in case others have same need bob carpenter i too would like a d graphics library how much do c libraries cost anyway can you get the tools used by say renderman and can you get them at a reasonable cost sorry that i don t have any answers just questions matt madsen mmadsen ics uci edu
comp.graphics	thinning algorithm hi netters i am looking for source code that can reads the ascii file or bitmap file and produced the thinned image for example to preprocess the character image i want to apply thinning algorithm thanks kevin
comp.graphics	looking for autocad dxf file parser hello does anyone know of any c or c function libraries in the public domain that assist in parsing an autocad dxf file please e mail thanks jogle geigel seas gwu edu
comp.graphics	delaunay triangulation does anybody know what delaunay triangulation is is there any reference to it is it useful for creating d objects if yes what s the advantage thanks in advance yeh usc
comp.graphics	re cylinder and ray in article qc fginnbv darkstar ucsc edu koehler secs ucsc edu writes i would be most thrilled if some kind person could help me with the following given a cylinder in d defined as a line segment between two points and a radius e g sx sy sz to ex ey ez and r what is the easiest and not too expensive way to find if a ray defined as another line through two points cuts through this cylinder and if so where i think the test for touching is rather simple if the closest approach of the two lines is less than r then the ray does penetrate the cylinder nope this won t work for a cylinder you can have a line arbitrarily close to the the cylinder backbone and yet not intersect it the test works for a pillbox though a cylinder with two hemispheres attached at the ends thanks ryan koehler secs ucsc edu arun
comp.graphics	re crimson was kubota announcement in article bu edu kiki problem with inews gateway file keith baccki writes c lee lee obiwan rsg hac com wrote did you say dec alpha upgrade path from xx replace upgrade path from vax x to alpha replace the system not totally fair you haven t mentioned the decstation series i think if sgi made cisc mainframes they wouldn t provide an upgrade path to an onyx i agree with you about the upgrade path but i think i was fair the original posting complained about sgi coming out with newer and better architectures and not having an upgrade path from the older ones and that dec did on statement i merely attempted to point out that all computer companies are constantly attempting to improve their product market position share in so doing they eventually come to a point where they have a new architecture and the only upgrade path is to replace the system and the particular system he was complaining about was in computer lifetimes relatively old on statement i felt dec s history of providing upgrades was not far superior than the industry average and that in my opinion sgi s history is better than dec s and what is dec doing with it s mips based decstation line are they going to abandon it for their alpha based line or provide an upgrade path to r s and tfp s and r s
comp.graphics	book of kells correction i aparantly mistyped the address for the ftp site which holds the images the correct address should be jupiter csd unb ca rather than jupiter csd unb edu they are in the directory pub library info jon williams university of northern iowa
comp.graphics	job job opportunity seri systems engineering research institute of kist korea institute of science and technology is looking for the resumes for the following position and need them by the end of june if you are interested send resumes to cad cae lab th floor systems engineering research institute korea institute of science and technology yousung gu eoeun dong daejon korea company systems engineering research institute title senior research scientist job description in depth knowledge of c working knowledge of computer aided design working knowledge of computer graphics working knowledge of virtual reality skills not required but desirable knowledge of data modeling virtual reality experience understanding of client server architecture requirement ph d job location daejon korea contact info chul ho lim cad cae lab th floor systems engineering research institute korea institute of science and technology yousung gu eoeun dong daejon korea phone fax e mail jxl
comp.graphics	chosing optimal colors for colormap hi i m looking for an algorithm that would generate a good cross section of rgb colours given a limited colour map size the problem i m writing an application for the pc that may have at most colors i want to use one colormap palette for the application but i d like it to contain an even spread of colours of the visible spectrum i could use a x x rgb cube but the problem is that a lot of those colours are almost identical to the human eye does anyone know how i can optimize my choice of colors
comp.graphics	re siggraph srnelson speedsail eng sun com scott r nelson writes dave mikelson almac co uk dave mikelson writes does anyone know if there is an open day for the public at any time that is not to attend conferences but just browse around the exhibits or are the exhibits etc just for fully registered attendees was free as long as you got it to siggraph on or before july for it was similar or free before july it is safe to assume that the same kind of deal will be available this year i just got my advance program and the card in the back is for the exhibits plus program the exhibits plus admission to a number of conference venues including a special general session behind the scenes computer graphics in film admission is not free but is a nominal exhibits are open august to get a copy of the advance program you can call the advance program itself is a good indication of the excitement of the conference register early and get in for free sorry doesn t work this year steve cunningham
comp.graphics	d studio works changes hi guys like all people in this group i m a fans of fractal and render sw my favourite are fractint pov dstudio now listen my ideas i have just starting now to be able to use dstudio quite well so i m simulating a full animation of a f grand prix unfortanatly just some lap i m very interested about all kind of prj ds and so on concerning about cars or parts of its motors wheel dxf are good enough does anyone have object to give me to complete my hard animation anyway any exchanges about object material project will be very apreciate is there a ftp site where i can find its i m looking for pov files too i m interested about cpu time comparision rendering images on pov dstusio thank to all email me at rosa ghost sm dsi unimi it
comp.graphics	re rumours about do dave optimla aimla com dave ziedman writes do is still a concept the software is what sells and what will determine its success apparantly you dont keep up on the news do was shown at ces to developers and others at private showings over software licensees currently developing software for it i would say that it is a lot more than just a concept
comp.graphics	re please recommend d graphics library for m in article g bcstec ca boeing com rgc bcstec ca boeing com robert g carpenter writes hi netters i m building a cad package and need a d graphics library that can handle some rudimentry tasks such as hidden line removal shading animation etc can you please offer some recommendations i ll also need contact info name address email if you can find it thanks please post your responses in case others have same need bob carpenter i ve been given the sites of some excellent d objects on all sorts of file formats here s where they are host plaza aarnet edu au location graphics graphics mirrors directory drwxr xr x apr avalon chinalake navy mil host compute cc ncsu edu location mirrors wustl graphics graphics mirrors directory drwxr xr x mar avalon chinalake navy mil host wuarchive wustl edu location graphics graphics mirrors directory drwxr xr x jan avalon chinalake navy mil see ya ajay
comp.graphics	about the various dxf format questions archie told me the following sites holding documentation about dxf host nic funet fi last updated apr location pub csc graphics format file rwxrwxr dec dxf doc host rainbow cse nau edu last updated jun location graphics formats file rw r r mar dxf doc host ftp waseda ac jp last updated apr location pub data graphic file rw r r nov dxf doc z j org wunsch ham dl dtl joerg wunsch uriah sax de if anything can go wrong or o o joerg sax de wutcd hadrian hrz tu chemnitz de it will joerg wunsch tcd dresden de
comp.graphics	re mpeg for x windows mono needed on sunsite unc edu in pub multimedia utilities unix find mpeg play tar z i find for mono it works best as mpeg play dither threshold though you can use mpeg play dither mono face it this is not be the best viewing situation also someone has made a patch for mpeg play that gives two more mono modes mono and halftone they are by jan pandonia canberra edu au jan newmarch and the patch can be found on csc canberra edu au under pub motif mpeg mono patch leon dent lcd umcc umich edu
comp.graphics	compiled version of vogl library for pc has anybody compiled vogl graphics library for ibm pc i need to call it from ms fortran but don t have ms c to compile the sources thanks for any help martti toivakka mtoivakk abo fi
comp.graphics	re virtual reality for x on the cheap has anyone got multiverse to work i have built it on svr mips svr s and sun sparcstation there seems to be many bugs in it the dogfight and dactyl simply do nothing after fixing a bug where a variable is defined twice in two different modules one needed setting to static else the client core dumped steve extn sts mfltd co uk uunet mfocus sts micro focus just like pariah i have no name rm rf west street living in a blaze of obscurity rum ruff splat newbury need courage to survive the day berkshire england a bort r etry i nfluence with large hammer
comp.graphics	micro world data bank ii i m looking for a database called micro world data bank ii a database with digital map information containing latitude longitude points it is said to be in the public domain if anyone knows a place where i can get it preferably ftp gopher mailserver etc otherwise snail mail please let me know i you have it yourself and are willing to send me the file drop me a line i ll be using it with a program called versamap by charles h culberson if anyone knows of another detailed database that can be used with this program preferably pd i would be very interested replies by e mail please directly to me i don t read this group regularly if there s interest i ll post a summary of course derk ederveen fidonet tel d n m ederveen research ptt nl ederveen hlsdnl bitnet fax x c nl admd net prmd ptt research o ptt research s ederveen i dnm i wish i was a warrior in every language that i speak lou reed
comp.graphics	looking for dr bala r vatti s email address hi i am looking for the email address of the author to a generic solution to polygon clipping communication of the acm july vol no i got information about the author as follows mr bala r vatti lcec river road hudson n h email vatti waynar lcec lockheed i want to get some related and detailed papers about the same topic from the author but i failed to send my email to the address any information is appreciated thank you very much best regards s h young kunii lab dept of information science faculty of science university of tokyo bunkyo ku hongo tokyo japan email young is s u tokyo ac jp
comp.graphics	round vs elliptical dot screens when using photoshop is there anyway to get an elliptical dot for the halftone screen rather than a round dot my printer would prefer an elliptical dot but i m not sure how to set it up i m sending from a mac iici to a linotronic l imagesetter and i am using photoshop to make my separations any help would be greatly appreshed t i a michael unscene michael maier computer artist anl z glued to the veiw email michael maier qmgate anl gov tv is the milk of amnesia phone michael maier
comp.graphics	sgi sales practices was crimson was kubota announcement in article hacgate scg hac com lee luke rsg hac com c lee writes the original posting complained about sgi coming out with newer and better architectures and not having an upgrade path from the older ones and that dec did no that s not what i was complaining about nor did i intend to suggest that dec was any better than sgi let me tell you about the lynx some day but be prepared with a large sedative if you do my comment regarding dec was to indicate that i might be open to other vendors that supported opengl rather than deal further with sgi what i am annoyed about is the fact that we were led to believe that we would be able to upgrade to a multiprocessor version of the crimson without the assistance of a fork lift truck i m also annoyed about being sold several personal irises at a previous site on the understanding that architecture would be around for a while rather than being flushed now i understand that sgi is responsible to its investors and has to keep showing a positive quarterly bottom line odd that i found myself pressured on at least two occasions to get the business on the books just before the end of the quarter but i m just a little tired of getting boned in the process maybe it s because my lab buys sgis in onesies and twosies so we aren t entitled to a peek under the covers as the big kids nasa for instance are this lab and i suspect that a lot of other labs and organizations doesn t have a load of money to spend on computers every year so we can t be out buying new systems on a regular basis the boxes that we buy now will have to last us pretty much through the entire grant period of five years and in some case beyond that means that i need to buy the best piece of equipment that i can when i have the money not some product that was built to paraphrase one previous poster s words to fill a niche to compete with some other vendor i m going to be looking at this box for the next five years and every time i look at it i m going to think about sgi and how i could have better spent my money actually your money since we re supported almost entirely by federal tax dollars now you ll have to pardon me while i go off and hiss and fume in a corner somewhere and think dark libelous thoughts spl steve lamont sciviguy spl szechuan ucsd edu san diego microscopy and imaging resource uc san diego la jolla ca my other car is a car too bumper strip seen on i
comp.graphics	re please recommend d graphics library for mac robert g carpenter writes hi netters i m building a cad package and need a d graphics library that can handle some rudimentry tasks such as hidden line removal shading animation etc can you please offer some recommendations i ll also need contact info name address email if you can find it thanks please post your responses in case others have same need bob carpenter the following is extracted from sumex aim stanford edu it should also be on the mirrors i think there is source for some applications that may have some bearing on your project poke around the source directory i ve never used this package nor do i know anyone who did but the price is right hope this helps cheinan abstracts of files as of thu apr pst directory info mac source binhex d grafsys hqx date fri mar from christian steffen ove franz cfranz iiic ethz ch to questions mac archive umich edu subject d grafsys in incoming directory a d grafsys short description follows programmers d grafsys vers now available version is mainly a bugfix for think c users this version now runs with think c i promise the docs now contain a chapter for c programmers on how to use the grafsys if you have problems feel free to contact me the other change is that i removed the fastperftrig calls from the fpu version to make it run faster those of you who don t know what all this is about read on programmers d grafsys what it is didn t you always have this great game in mind where you needed some way of drawing three dimensional scenes didn t you always want to write this program that visualized the structure of three dimensional molecules and didn t the task of writing your d conversions routines keep you from actually doing it well if the answer to any of the above questions is yes but what has it to do with this package read on grafsys is a think pascal c library that provides you with simple routines for building saving loading as resources and manipulating independent rotating around arbitrary achses translating and scaling three dimensional objects objects not just simple single line drawings grafsys supports full d clipping animation and some primitive hidden line hidden surface drawing with simple commands from within your program grafsys also supports full eye control with both perspective and parallel projections if you can t understand a word don t worry this is just showing off for those who know about it the docs that come with it will try to explain what it all means later on grafsys provides a powerful interface to supply your own drawing routines with data so you can use grafsys to do the d transformations and your own routines to do the actual drawing note that grafsys also provides drawing routines so you don t have to worry about that if you don t want to grafsys comes in two versions one for the and or above processors the other version uses fixed point arithmetic and runs on any mac both versions are source compatibel grafsys comes with an extensive manual that teaches you the fundamentals of d graphics and how to use the package if demand is big enough i will convert the grafsys to an object class library however i feelt that the way it is implemented now makes it easier to use for a lot more people than the select oop guild grafsys is free for any non commercial usage read the documentation enclosed enjoy christian franz
comp.graphics	re fonts in pov in article qg fc et wampyr cc uow edu au g wampyr cc uow edu au coronado emmanuel abad says i have seen several ray traced scenes from mtv or was it rayshade with stroked fonts appearing as objects in the image the fonts chars had color depth and even textures associated with them now i was wondering is it possible to do the same in pov thanks noel yes there are serveral programs which can convert font files eq the borland fonts to objects consisting of spheres cones etc i ve used a program forgot its name place but i can look for it which converted these borland fonts to three different raytracers vivid pov and polyray which i like more more flexibel faster use of expressions etc the program has a lot nice features so if interested give me a mail peter vanderveen visser el wau nl o o department of genetics agricultural university u wageningen the netherlands
comp.graphics	re vesa on the speedstar using the vmode command all you need to do is type vmode vesa at the dos prompt vmode is included with the speedstar i have used the vesa mode for autodesk animator pro geoffrey hansen mindlink bc ca inumerable confusions and a feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transition marshall mcluhan
comp.graphics	re hot new d software i don t have nor imagine nor real d but as old amiga user i think you should take a look also to real d for the amiga i saw imagine on the amiga for a long time at my friend s home and i ve seen r d in action at bit movie in riccione italy an italian computer graphics contest many professionals using d studio on pc softimage for silicon graphics and imagine on the amiga were very impressed by the power of this programs sorry i ve lost the posting with full description of features of this great program for more informations give a look in comp sys amiga graphics representative of activa international told me that it will be out in weeks for the amiga and that pc ms windows silicon indigo and unix version are under development ciao sergio sergio ruocco ruocco ghost sm dsi unimi it via di vittorio i settimo milanese milano phone
comp.graphics	re pcx in article apr freenet carleton ca ad freenet carleton ca jason wiggle writes from ad freenet carleton ca jason wiggle subject pcx date wed apr gmt hello help please i am a student of turbo c and graphics programming and i am having some problems finding algorithms and code to teach me how to do some stuff where is there a book or code that will teach me how to read and write pcx dbf and gif files how do i access the extra ram on my paradise video board so i can do paging in the higher vga modes ie x x x x anybody got a line on a good book to help answer these question thanks very much send reply s to palm snycanva bitnet peace be blessed be stephen palm a book that i can somewhat recommend is pratical image processing in c by craig a lindley published by wiley it addresses reading writing to from pcx tiff files image acquisition manipulation and storage and has source code in the book the source is primarily written in turbo c and naturally has conversion possibilities i have converted some of it to quick c naturally the code has some problems in the book as usuall typos syntax etc are problems it can be a good learning experience for someone who is studying c there is also a companion disk with source available for order and overall the book is not bad i acquired the book at waldensoftware
comp.graphics	re please recommend d graphics library f what hardware do plan to run on workstation or pc cost level run time licensing needs bob robert a schmitt applied derivatives technology lehman brothers rschmitt shearson com
comp.graphics	need help with mitsubishi p u image printer our group recently bought a mitsubishi p u video printer and i could use some help with it we bought this thing because it has a parallel data input in addition to the usual video signal inputs and claimed to print gray level images however the manual that came with it only describes how to format the parallel data to print and bit pixel images after some initial problems with the parallel interface i now have this thing running from a parallel port of an hewlett packard workstation and i can print and bit pixel images just fine i called the mitsubishi people and asked about the level claim and they said that was only available when used with the video signal inputs this was not mentioned in the sales literature however they did say the p u can do bit pixel level images in parallel mode but they didn t have any information about how to program it to do so and they would call japan etc frankly i find it hard to believe that if this thing can do bit pixel images from the video source it can t store bits pixel in the memory it s not like memory is that expensive any more if anybody has any information on getting bit pixel or even bit pixel images out of this thing i would greatly appreciate your sending it to me thanks allan weber signal image processing institute university of southern california weber sipi usc edu
comp.graphics	need graph display edit i am looking for a program that is capable of displaying a graph with nodes and links and with the possibility to edit interactively the graph add one node change one link etc actually a very simple x program would be ok all i need is to put some boxes i e the nodes on a pane and be able to manipulate them with the mouse move add or delete boxes does anyone know if such program is available thanks for any help loris renggli phone swiss federal institute of technology fax math dept ch lausanne switzerland e mail renggli masg epfl ch
comp.graphics	re rumours about do in article apr rchland ibm com ricardo hernandez muchado ricardo rchland vnet ibm com writes and cd i s cpu doesn t help much either i understand it is a supposedly a variation of a running at something like mhz with this speed you truly need sprites wow a i d be very interested to get my hands on one of these especially considering the fact that motorola has not yet released the which is supposedly the next in the x lineup d ricardo the animation playback to which lawrence was referring in an earlier post is plain old quicktime with the compact video codec i ve seen digitized video some of apple s early commercials to be precise running on a centris at about fps very nicely bit color depth i would expect that using the same algorithm a risc processor should be able to approach full screen full motion animation though as you ve implied the processor will be taxed more with highly dynamic material sean mcmains check out the gopher phone university of north texas new bands info server fax p o box at seanmac acs unt edu e mail denton tx mcmains unt edu
comp.graphics	xga info hi has anyone more info about the xga chipset hw funcs truecolor resolutions any boards with xga out yet thanks rainer rainer leberle rleberle sparc cstp umkc edu university of kansas city mo new mail from clinton whitehouse dc gov no subject specified
comp.graphics	re tiff philosophical significance of cptully med unc edu christopher p tully pathology writes why so up tight for that matter tiff is out now so why not gripe about its problems also if its so important to you volunteer to help define or critique the spec hear hear finally a little numerology is backwards and tiff is a bit image format really i thought that the reason it was was that it is really but written as so that on intel chips you could get the proper value pete help stomp out the endian wars break some eggs on their sides peter mueller thebishop when a person commits a violation and sins highlndr ux cso uiuc edu unintentionally in regard to any of the pmueller mrcnext cso uiuc edu lord s holy things he is to bring to the lord as a penalty a ram from the flock
comp.graphics	re sgi sales practices was crimson was kubota announcement my comment regarding dec was to indicate that i might be open to other vendors that supported opengl rather than deal further with sgi opengl is a graphics programming library and as such is a great portable interface for the development of interactive d graphics applications it is not however an indicator of performance as that will vary strongly from machine to machine and vendor to vendor sgi is committed to high performance interactive graphics systems and software tools so opengl means that you can port easily from sgi to other platforms there is no guarantee that your performance would be comparable what i am annoyed about is the fact that we were led to believe that we would be able to upgrade to a multiprocessor version of the crimson without the assistance of a fork lift truck if your sales representative truly mislead you then you should have a valid grievance against us which you should carry up to your local sgi sales management team feel free to contact the local branch manager we understand that repeat sales come from satisfied customers so give it a shot i m also annoyed about being sold several personal irises at a previous site on the understanding that architecture would be around for a while rather than being flushed as one of the previous posts stated the personal iris was introduced in and grew to include the d d d and d as clock rates sped up over time as a rule of thumb sgi platforms live for about years this was true of the motorola based series the pi the professional series the early d s the power series parallel systems individual cpu subsystems running at a particular clock rate usually live for about years new graphics architectures at the high end gt vgx realityengine are released every months to years these are the facts of life if we look at these machines they become almost archaic after four years and we have to come out with a new platform like indigo onyx challenge which has higher bus bandwidths faster cpus faster graphics and i o and larger disk capacities if we don t we become uncompetitive from the user perspective you have to buy a machine that meets your current needs and makes economic sense today you can t wait to buy but if you need a guaranteed upgrade path for the machine ask the sales rep for one in writing if it s feasible they should be able to do that some of our upgrade paths have specific programs associated with them such as the performance protection program for older r based power series multiprocessing systems which allowed purchasers of those systems to obtain a guaranteed upgrade price for moving to the new onyx or challenge r based bit multiprocessor systems now i understand that sgi is responsible to its investors and has to keep showing a positive quarterly bottom line odd that i found myself pressured on at least two occasions to get the business on the books just before the end of the quarter but i m just a little tired of getting boned in the process if that s happening it s becausing of misunderstandings or mis communication not because sgi is directly attempting to annoy our customer base maybe it s because my lab buys sgis in onesies and twosies so we aren t entitled to a peek under the covers as the big kids nasa for instance are this lab and i suspect that a lot of other labs and organizations doesn t have a load of money to spend on computers every year so we can t be out buying new systems on a regular basis most sgi customers are onesy twosey types but regardless we rarely give a great deal of notice when we are about to introduce a new system because again like a previous post stated if we pre announced and the schedule slipped we would mess up our potential customers schedules when they were counting on the availability of the new systems on a particular date and would also look awfully bad to both our investors and the financial analysts who watch us most carefully to see if we are meeting our commitments the boxes that we buy now will have to last us pretty much through the entire grant period of five years and in some case beyond that means that i need to buy the best piece of equipment that i can when i have the money not some product that was built to paraphrase one previous poster s words to fill a niche to compete with some other vendor i m going to be looking at this box for the next five years and every time i look at it i m going to think about sgi and how i could have better spent my money actually your money since we re supported almost entirely by federal tax dollars five years is an awfully long time in computer years new processor technologies are arriving every years making a year old computer at least and probably generations behind the times the competitive nature of the market is demanding that rate of development so if your timing is really years between purchases you have to accept the limited viability of whatever architecture you buy into from any vendor there are some realities about the computer biz that we all have to live with but keeping customers happy is the most important so don t give up we know it josh joshua mogal product manager advanced graphics division advanced graphics systems silicon graphics inc market manager north shoreline blvd virtual reality mountain view ca interactive entertainment m s l tel fax e mail mogal sgi com
comp.graphics	rendering software for multi processor computer s hello i am searching for rendering software which has been developed to specifically take advantage of multi processor computer systems any pointers to such software would be greatly appreciated thanks billy carter software engineering section southwest research institute wcarter swri edu
comp.graphics	wanted map of the world type gifs hi can anyone direct me to map type gifs i am interesting in cartography and would find these gifs useful tia lee van dyke lvandyke balboa eng uci edu uucp infotec infotec com lee sunkist west sun com
comp.graphics	pov having trouble bump mapping a gif to a sphere hello i ve been trying to bump map a gif onto a sphere for a while and i can t seem to get it to work image mapping works but not bump mapping here s a simple file i was working with could some kind soul tell me whats wrong with this include colors inc include shapes inc include textures inc camera location direction up right look at object light source color white object sphere texture bump map gif surf gif note surf gif is a plasma fractal from fractint that is using the landscape palette map thanks in advance daniel daniel kennett dkennett sfu ca our minds are finite and yet even in those circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude alfred north whitehead
comp.graphics	point of intersection of n lines hi can anybody suggest robust algorithms code for computing the point of intersection on n d lines in a plane the data has outliers and hence a simple least squares technique does not seem to provide satifactory results please respond by e mail and i will post the summary to the newsgroups if there is sufficient interest thanks raj talluri member technical staff image understanding branch texas instruments central research labs dallas texas talluri csc ti com
comp.graphics	program included edge detection algorithms this program doesn t detect edges with compass operators and a laplacian operator it should output raw grey scale images with edges the output doesn t look like edges at all in novicee terms how do i correct the errors any improvements are welcome i ll even accept your corrected code if i convolve the input image with a digital gaussian by to remove noise will i get an improvement with the laplacian types of edge detection include stdio h include math h define imagewidth define imageheight unsigned char input image imageheight imagewidth unsigned char angles wanted imageheight imagewidth unsigned char magnitude image imageheight imagewidth int laplace op int compass op int compass op int compass op int compass op int compass op int compass op int compass op int compass op void compass row col int row col int value int op rows op cols int compass compass compass compass int compass compass compass compass compass compass compass compass compass compass compass compass for op rows op rows op rows for op cols op cols op cols if row op rows col op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols compass int input image row op rows col op cols compass op op rows op cols if compass compass value compass else value compass if value compass value compass if value compass value compass if value compass value compass if value compass value compass if value compass value compass if value compass value compass magnitude image row col char value void laplace row col int row col int op rows op cols magnitude image row col for op rows op rows op rows for op cols op cols op cols if row op rows col op cols magnitude image row col char int magnitude image row col int input image row op rows col op cols laplace op op rows op cols main file original image fp file laplace mag fp laplace mag fp laplace mag fp file compass mag fp int row col algo count original image fp fopen input image rb laplace mag fp fopen laplace magnitude wb compass mag fp fopen compass magnitude wb fread unsigned char input image sizeof unsigned char imageheight imagewidth original image fp for algo count algo count algo count for row row imageheight row for col col imagewidth col if algo count laplace row col else compass row col if algo count fwrite magnitude image sizeof char imageheight imagewidth laplace mag fp else fwrite magnitude image sizeof char imageheight imagewidth compass mag fp for a lot of au music ftp sounds sdsu edu then cat file au dev audio ub library catalog telnet bison acsu buffalo edu when in doubt ask xarchie xgopher or xwais
comp.graphics	re virtual reality for x on the cheap hi steve as the author of multiverse i feel i had better respond to your mailnote questioning whether anyone had managed to compile this software the quick answer is yes the long answer is yes but a few have had a few problems with their platforms not all unix s are the same you know as far as many bugs go it would probably be more useful to everyone including you if you were a bit more explicit platforms it has succesfully compiled and run on are rs dec ultrix sun solaris so it is possible the main problem is that i don t have access to other platforms than the rs so if there are portability problems then the only way i hear about them is by people letting me know and giving me a clue as to how to fix it as far as the software not doing anything do you really think i would bother releasing it if that was the case perhaps you didn t read the few docs that are supplied the dogfight world is made up of clients only so if you re in there on your own then you re not going to see anything the dactyl world has quite a lot of scenary so if you don t see anything there then this is definitely a problem one final word if you re not interested don t bother with it if you are interested then please remember that i m not asking for any money so why not try a little patience and constructive criticism maybe that will get results robert robert acsc com
comp.graphics	re hot new d software i don t think speed has been determined since it has never run on intel chips but on the amiga s motorola chips it was one of the fastest true ray tracers i don t think impulse would port it over and not take speed into consideration in terms of features and learning curve all that you stated for ds is also true for imagine and lots more but i ll have to admit that after years of use on the amiga the learning curve is very steep this is due only to the manual it is realy bad however there is a lot of after market support for this product including regular tips articles in many magazines such as avid and a great book by steve worley called understanding imagine this book i is not just recommened it is a must i think an important consideration should be price for ds not including tool packages under for imagine complete
comp.graphics	re cylinder and ray sketch rotate so cylinder axis is z axis intersect x y projection of line with projected cylinder similar to but easier than sphere intersection result no intersection one intersection or two intersections parameterized along line by t and t now look at z and compute intersections of line with top and bottom planes of cylinder this gives t and t the interval of intersection is then the bit of the line from t t intersect t t details left as an exercise for the reader s spencer w thomas info tech and networking b cfob genome informatician univ of michigan ann arbor mi spencer w thomas med umich edu fax
comp.graphics	sphere from points boy this will be embarassing if it is trivial or an faq given points non coplanar how does one find the sphere that is center and radius exactly fitting those points i know how to do it for a circle from points but do not immediately see a straightforward way to do it in d i have checked some geometry books graphics gems and farin but am still at a loss please have mercy on me and provide the solution thanks ed ed bolson university of washington cardiovascular research bolson u washington edu preferred bolson max bitnet bolson milton u washington edu if you must
comp.graphics	announce ivan sutherland to speak at harvard the harvard computer society is pleased to announce its third lecture of the spring ivan sutherland the father of computer graphics and an innovator in microprocessing will be speaking at harvard university on tuesday april at pm in aiken computations building room the title of his talk is logical effort and the conflict over the control of information cookies and tea will be served at pm in the aiken lobby admissions is free and all are welcome aiken is located north of the science center near the law school for more information send e mail to eekim husc harvard edu the lecture will be videotaped and a tape will be made available thanks eugene kim give me a place to stand and i will internet eekim husc harvard edu move the earth archimedes
comp.graphics	windows imagine has anyone who has ordered the new pc version of imagine actually recieved it yet i m just about ready to order but reading posts about people still awaiting delivery are making me a little paranoid has anyone actually held this piece of software in their own hands later jim nobles
comp.graphics	vga mode h routines available hi there i ve made a vga mode h graphics library available via ftp i originally wrote the routines as a kind of exercise for myself but perhaps someone here will find them useful they are certainly useable as they are but are missing some higher level functionality they re intended more as an intro to mode h programming a starting point the library assumes a processor but it is trivial to modify it for a if enough people ask i ll make the mods and re post it as a different version the routines are written in assembly tasm and are callable from c they are fairly simple but i ve found them to be very fast for my purposes anyway routines are included to enter and exit mode h define a virtual screen put and get pixels put a pixmap rectangular image with no transparent spots put a sprite image with see thru areas copy areas of the virtual screen into video memory etc i ve also included a simple c routine to draw a line as well as a c routine to load a color gif image into a buffer i also wrote a quick n dirty tm demo program that bounces a bunch of sprites around behind three windows the whole package is available on spang camosun bc ca in pub dos vgl zip it is zipped with pkzip g it is completely in the public domain as far as i m concerned do with it whatever you like however it d be nice to get credit where it s due and maybe an e mail telling me you like it if you don t like it don t bother mark morley camosun bc ca
comp.graphics	re please recommend d graphics library for mac i searched the u mich archives fairly thoroughly for d graphics packages i always thought it to be a mirror of sumex aim stanford edu i was wrong i ll look into grafsys it does sound interesting thanks cheinan bobc
comp.graphics	re please recommend d graphics library f sorry about not mentioning platform my original post was to mac programmer and then decided to post here to comp graphics i d like the d software to run on primarily mac in either c object pascal think or mpw but i ll port to windows later so a package that runs on mac and has a windows version would be ideal i m looking for a package that has low upfront costs and reasonable licensing costs of course bobc
comp.graphics	re sphere from points in article qkgbuinns n shelley u washington edu bolson carson u washington edu edward bolson writes boy this will be embarassing if it is trivial or an faq given points non coplanar how does one find the sphere that is center and radius exactly fitting those points i know how to do it for a circle from points but do not immediately see a straightforward way to do it in d i have checked some geometry books graphics gems and farin but am still at a loss please have mercy on me and provide the solution wouldn t this require a hyper sphere in space points over specifies a sphere as far as i can see unless that is you can prove that a point exists in space that is equi distant from the points and this may not necessarily happen correct me if i m wrong which i quite possibly am steve steven collins email steve crl hitachi co jp visiting computer graphics researcher phone hitachi central research lab tokyo fax
comp.graphics	re sphere from points bolson carson u washington edu edward bolson writes boy this will be embarassing if it is trivial or an faq given points non coplanar how does one find the sphere that is center and radius exactly fitting those points i know how to do it for a circle from points but do not immediately see a straightforward way to do it in d i have checked some geometry books graphics gems and farin but am still at a loss please have mercy on me and provide the solution it s not a bad question i don t have any refs that list this algorithm either but thinking about it a bit it shouldn t be too hard take three of the points and find the plane they define as well as the circle that they lie on you say you have this algorithm already find the center of this circle the line passing through this center perpendicular to the plane of the three points passes through the center of the sphere repeat with the unused point and two of the original points this gives you two different lines that both pass through the sphere s origin their interection is the center of the sphere the radius is easy to compute it s just the distance from the center to any of the original points i ll leave the math to you but this is a workable algorithm an alternate method would be to take pairs of points the plane formed by the perpendicular bisector of each line segment pair also contains the center of the sphere three pairs will form three planes intersecting at a point this might be easier to implement steve spworley netcom com
comp.graphics	rayshade to dxf rib etc strata i m a mac user who wants to use some of the rayshade models i ve built using macrayshade rayshade m with stratavision d since stratavision can import many different model files i thought this would be a cinch but i haven t been able to find a simple translator that will work on the mac any ideas stratavision d should be able to import dxf minicad super d swivel d professional out of the box and rib igs with externals also if anyone knows of any other translator externals available for stratavision d esp rayshade please e mail me btw i m going to send mail to the rayshade usrs mailing list tomorrow i misplaced the address but since most users of rayshade do not seem to operate with macs i m not getting my hopes up thanks in advance patrick hurh fnal fnal gov
comp.graphics	siggraph course notes i am looking for a copy of the following siggraph publication gomez j e comments on event driven annimation siggraph course notes if anyone knows of a location where i can obtain a copy of these notes i would appreciate if they could let me know thanks dkusswur falcon depaul edu
comp.graphics	cobra b video card help me does anyone out there in net land have any information on the cobra card the sticker on the end of the card reads model cobra b bios cobra v i havn t been able to find anything about it from anyone if you have any information on how to get a hold of the company which produces the card or know where any drivers are for it please let me know as far as i can tell it s a cga card that is taking up of my bit isa slots but when i enable the test patterns it displays much more than the usualy cga colors at least from what i can count thanks internet jele eis calstate edu bbs mirage gilligan tsoft net bbs mirage tsoft sf bay org mirage thetech com uucp apple com tsoft bbs mirage computer and video imaging major
comp.graphics	externel processes for d studio to all hi does anybody have the source code to the externel processes that comes with d studio and mabe som kind of doc for writing the processes your self lars author lars jorgensen p syntax bbs bad se syntax bbs denmark golded
comp.graphics	re text recognition software availability in article c ihqm v mentor cc purdue edu ab nova cc purdue edu allen b writes one more time is there any free ocr software out there i ask this question periodically and haven t found anything this is the last time if i don t find anything i m going to write some myself post here or email me if you have any leads or suggestions else just sit back and wait for me ab i m not sure if this is free or shareware but you can try to look to wsmrsimtel army mil directory pd msdos deskpub file ocr zip from the file simibm lst ocr zip b optical character recognition for scanners hope this helps roman valo valo cvt stuba cs slovak technical university bratislava slovakia
comp.graphics	re sphere from points in article qkgbuinns n shelley u washington edu bolson carson u washington edu edward bolson writes boy this will be embarassing if it is trivial or an faq center and radius exactly fitting those points i know how to do it for a circle from points but do not immediately see a straightforward way to do it in d i have checked some geometry books graphics gems and farin but am still at a loss please have mercy on me and provide the solution off the top of my head i might try given p p p p find p c center of sphere determined by p p dist p c p i radius p c is the same distance from our four points so dist p c p dist p c p dist p c p dist p c p of course we can square the whole thing to get rid of square roots distsq p c p distsq p c p distsq p c p distsq p c p plug in the variables into the distance formula simplify and the x c y c and z c terms cancel out leaving you with three linearly independent equations and three unknowns x c y c z c solve using your favorite method all the best john dr john s eickemeyer the lord god is subtle information technology institute but malicious he is not national computer board singapore email johne iti gov sg albert einstein
comp.graphics	re rumours about do in article apr mercury unt edu sean mcmains mcmains unt edu writes wow a i d be very interested to get my hands on one of these especially considering the fact that motorola has not yet released the which is supposedly the next in the x lineup d the is a variation of the that was done a few years ago by the european partners of motorola it has some integrated i o controllers and half a mmu but otherwise it s a think of it the same as the and were burkhard neidecker lutz distributed multimedia group cec karlsruhe eerp portfolio manager software motion pictures berkom ii project multimedia base technology digital equipment corporation neidecker nestvx enet dec com
comp.graphics	avi file format hi would someone please email the new avi file format i m sure that many people would like to know what it is exactly thank you mark gregory lecturer m gregory rmit edu au ph fax royal melbourne institute of technology department of communication and electronic engineering p o box v melbourne victoria australia mark gregory lecturer m gregory rmit edu au ph fax royal melbourne institute of technology department of communication and electronic engineering p o box v melbourne victoria australia
comp.graphics	re vga x graphics mode dutc student tc umn edu writes in article c g qb bmp news cis umn edu some vesa bios s support this mode x and any vga should be able to support this x by colors since it only requires bytes my a vesa tsr supports this it s the only vesa mode by card can support due to a restrictions a wd paradise i am not responsible for anything i do or say i m just an opinion robert j c kyanko rob rjck uucp ahh no possibly you punched in the wrong numbers on your calculator color modes take a byte per pixel so time is which is k to be exact x x only takes k but i don t think it is a bios mode i wouldn t bet that all vga cards can do that either if a vga card has k i bet it can do both x and x that by definition is svga though not very high svga yes i did punch in the wrong numbers working too many late nites i intended on stating x is bytes it s not in the bios just my vesa tsr i am not responsible for anything i do or say i m just an opinion robert j c kyanko rob rjck uucp
comp.graphics	cview answers a very kind soul has mailed me this reply for the bugs in cview since he isn t in the position to post this himself he asked me to post it for him but to leave his name out so here it comes cview has quite a number of bugs the one you mention is perhaps the most annoying but not the most dangerous as far as i can determine it has to do with the temp files that cview creates cview gives the user no control over where it places its temp files it just places them in its current directory the problem you mention occurs as far as i can tell when it runs out of disk space for its temp files it seems as if cview doesn t check properly for this situation as cview decodes a jpeg it seems to write out a temp file with all the pixel data with bit colour information then for bit displays it does the dithering again writing another file with the bit colour information while it is writing this second file it also writes the data to your colour card then when it does the last chunk of bit data it recopies all the data from the bit file to your screen again it does this last recopy operation for its fit to screen feature even when this feature is not enabled the result of this process is the following if it runs out of disk space when writing the first bit file all you ever see is as much data as it has room for and the last bit of data is simply repeated over and over again because cview never realizes the disk has filled up and disk writes reads aren t performed if it has enough room for the bit data but runs out of room for the bit data you see almost all of the picture as it does the dithering and writes to the screen card however then when it finishes the dithering and recopies the data from the bit file to screen for whatever reason it does this one again just gets a repetition of the last chunk of data for which there was room on the disk this is just a guess but probably fairly accurate at least the general idea is on track i think although i have probably made errors in details about file i o etc the way around this is of course to clear up sufficient disk space the temp files for large jpeg s x and bigger can be very large meg meg on some of the largest i have needed in excess of meg free disk space cview has a much more serious bug if you are trying to display a file from a floppy and you change floppies while cview has some temp file open on the floppy then cview in certain circumstances will write the directory and fat table i can t remember for the removed floppy onto the newly inserted floppy thus corruptimg the new floppy in a very serious possibly unrevcoverable way so be careful it is incredibly poor programming for a program to do this on the other hand when choosing files in the open files menu cview insists on doing a few disk reads every time one moves the hi lighter square incredibly annoying when it could do them all at once when it gets the directory info and really how much effort does it take to sort a directory listing with much thanks to the originator of this article rene walter renew stack urc tue nl will i drown in tears of sorrow is there hope for tomorrow will this world ever get better can t we all just live together i don t wanna live in strife i just wanna live my life i deserve to have a future the good girls future
comp.graphics	re alt raytrace potential group yes please create the group alt raytrace soon i m hooked on pov geez like i don t have anything better to do oh dave letterman is on
comp.graphics	shadow optical raytracing package hi everyone i am looking for some software called shadow as far as i know its a simple raytracer used in the visualization of synchrotron beam lines now we have an old version of the program here but unfortunately we don t have any documentation if anyone knows where i can get some docs or maybe a newer version of the program or even another program that does the same sort of thing i would love to hear from you ps i think shadow was written by a f cerrina anyone any ideas thanks gary serc daresbury lab
comp.graphics	character recognition is there any program available free or otherwise for taking a tiff or gif or some other bitmapped file and turning it or parts of it into ascii characters dos os or platform independent programs if possible thanks
comp.graphics	need a good concave convex polygon algorithm we need a good concave convex polygon conversion routine i ve tried a couple without much luck please e mail responses and i will post a summary of any replies thank you richard stoakley rws v uvacs cs virginia edu
comp.graphics	automatic layout of state diagrams hi i m hoping someone out there will be able to help our computer science project group we are doing computer science honours and our project is to do a graphical simulator for a finite state automata basically the program must draw a diagram of a fsa from a textual grammar showing circles for states and labeled arc s in between the problem is working out the best way to layout the states and draw the arc s in between so that as few arc s as possible cross each other if anyone has any suggestions algorithms bug free ready to compile c code that might help us it would be much appreciated thanks in advance gregory
comp.graphics	how do i compensate for photographic viewpoint and distortion hi to all out there we have this problem and i m not certain i m solving it in the correct way i was wondering if anyone can shed light on this or point me in the right place to look we have an x ray imaging camera and a metallic tube with a cylindrical hole passing through it at a right angle to the tube s axis image x ray source screen metallic tube we know source screen centre distance radius of the tube radius of the hole we do some calculations based on the image of the hole on the screen however the calculations are mathematically highly complex and must assume that the object s hole projects an image resembling an ellipse if the tube is not parallel to the screen in the centre of the screen however it is unlikely that the object is placed so conveniently firstly we must transform the major and minor axis of the ellipse i cannot know what the angle between the tube and screen is do i have to assume that they are parallel to do the transformation how do i do this transformation secondly there is a distortion of the image due to the screen being planar the source screen distance increases as we move away from the centre of the screen how can i compensate the ellipse s axis for this image distortion so please can anyone give us a few pointers here how do we transform the image so it appears as it would if it were in the centre of the screen and how do i deal with distortion due to the shape of the screen we d appreciate any help either posted or emailed thanks in advance simon simon marshall dept of computer science university of hull hull hu rx uk football isn t about life and death it s more important than that bill email s marshall cs hull ac uk phone fax shankley
comp.graphics	re sphere from points in article hcrlgw crl hitachi co jp steve hcrlgw steven collins writes in article qkgbuinns n shelley u washington edu bolson carson u washington edu edward bolson writes boy this will be embarassing if it is trivial or an faq given points non coplanar how does one find the sphere that is center and radius exactly fitting those points i know how to do it for a circle from points but do not immediately see a straightforward way to do it in d i have checked some geometry books graphics gems and farin but am still at a loss please have mercy on me and provide the solution wouldn t this require a hyper sphere in space points over specifies a sphere as far as i can see unless that is you can prove that a point exists in space that is equi distant from the points and this may not necessarily happen correct me if i m wrong which i quite possibly am steve sorry call the four points a b c and d any three of them must be non collinear otherwise all three could not lie on the surface of a sphere and all four must not be coplaner otherwise either they cannot all lie on a sphere or they define an infinity of them a b and c define a circle the perpendicular bisectors of ab bc and ca meet in a point p say which is the centre of this circle this circle must lie on the surface of the desired sphere consider the normal to the plane abc passing through p all points on this normal are equidistant from a b and c and its circle in fact it is a diameter of the desired sphere take the plane containing this normal and d if d lies on the normal any plane containing the normal will do this plane is at right angles to the abc one let e be the point there are normally two of them on the circumference of the abc circle which lies in this plane we need a point q on the normal such that eq dq but the intersection of the perpendicular bisector of ed and the normal is such a point and it exists since d is not in the plane abc and so ed is not at right angles to the normal algorithm is the sphere well defined check that a and b are not coincident failure find the line ab and check that c does not lie on it failure find the plane abc and check that d does not lie in it failure yes find its centre find the perpendicular bisectors of ab and ac find their point of intersection p find the normal to the plane abc passing through p line n find the plane containing n and d find the point e on the abc circle in this plane if d lies on n take e as a find the perpendicular bisector of ed line l find the point of intersection of n and l q q is the centre of the desired sphere pictures in the plane abc a p b c at right angles to abc in the plane containing n and d e d line n p q numerically if ed ep then q will be very close to p relative to the radius of the abc circle and subject to error it s best to choose d so that the least of ad bd and cd is larger than for any other choice bob douglas computing services university of oxford internet bob oxford ac uk address banbury road oxford ox nn uk telephone
comp.graphics	polygon orientation in dxf hi i m writing a program to convert dxf files to a database format used by a d graphics program i ve written my program stores the points of a polygon in ccw order i ve used d concepts a little and it seems that the points are stored in the order they are drawn does the dxf format have a way of indicating which order the points are stored in cw or ccw its easy enough to convert but if i don t know which way they are stored i dont know which direction the polygon should be visible from if dxf doesn t handle this can anyone recommend a workaround the best i can think of is to create two polygons for each one in the dxf file one stored cw and the other ccw but that doubles the number of polygons and decreases speed thanks in advance for any help patrice hugo hydra unm edu
comp.graphics	fractals what good are they we have been using iterated systems compression board to compress pathology images and are getting ratios of to without too much loss in quality it is taking about mins per image to compress on a mhz but decompression is almost real time on a in software alone
comp.graphics	re a book i found graphics covlir crockett c its rpi edu locks writes hello i happened to spot an excellent book in a bookstore about days ago though it is in c and assembly it teaches you the assembly as it goes along so if you re like me and have no assembler experience don t worry it has almost everything that i wanted to know and has working code rod covlin i just bought a copy i can t disagree that it is a very good book but unfortunately i was looking for the same graphics feature described in this book but not in x x or x x mode it is easy to accomodate all the pixel descriptor or color attributes in those modes into a afffff but not in x x which is what i am interested in i haven t finish the book but i affraid the author didn t talk much about this mode or other svga modes if anyone out there know any good book dealing with fast svga graphics manupulation scrolling repainting all other good stuff please send me mail programming guide to svga card is also welcome thanks in advance tiang t foo tiang uokmax ecn uoknor edu tiang t foo tiang uokmax ecn uoknor edu
comp.graphics	speedstar how to program the truecolor mode hello i purchased my new with a noname graphics card installed which is obviously speedstar compatible its name is vga truecolor it is accompanied with some drivers and the utilities vmode xmode and at least one more mode as well as some drivers for lotus windows etc only one of the drivers is told to provide the truecolor mode namely the windows driver nowhere else except in the ad is any pointer to the truecolor mode some articles in this group about the speedstar and some other facts made me believe that my card is compatible to that one does anybody out there know how this mode can be adjusted how can i write a driver which allows me to have millions of colors with a resolution of x with hz interlaced greetings wolfgang
comp.graphics	info needed d contour plotting hi everyone it s spend the money before it goes away time here at u florida and we need to find some pc based software that will do contour plotting with irregular boundaries i e a d profile of a soil system with a pond superimposed on it we ve given surfer a pond trial run but it interpolates contours out into the pond and or creates artifacts at the borders soil if anyone out there knows of a product i ld appreciate hearing about it if there is enough of a response i ll post a summary thanks and now back to lurking steve bloom soil water science u fl sab gnv ifas ufl edu
comp.graphics	vesa standard vga svga programming hi i have a few question about graphics programming in vga svga how vesa standard works any documentation for vesa standard at a higher resolution than x x or x x vga mode where the video memory a affff is no longer sufficient to hold all info what is the trick to do fast image manipulation i heard about memory mapping or video memory bank switching but know nothing on how it is implemented any advice anyone my interest is in x x mode should this mode be called svga mode what is the technique for fast image scrolling for the above mode how to deal with different svga cards your guidance to books or any other sources to the above questions would be greatly appreciated please send me mail thanks in advance tiang t foo tiang uokmax ecn uoknor edu tiang t foo tiang uokmax ecn uoknor edu
comp.graphics	re sphere from points from bolson carson u washington edu edward bolson given points non coplanar how does one find the sphere that is cnter and radius exactly fitting those points the equation of the sphere through the points x y z x y z is x y z x y z x y z x x x y y y z z z when this by determininant is expanded on its first column you get the equation in the form a x y z bx cy dz e if you need the center and radius jyst divide through by a it cannot be zero if the given points form a non degenerate tetrahedron and complete the square on x y and z to obtain x xc y yc z zc r rcb slacvm slac stanford edu bob beach
comp.graphics	re vesa on the speedstar i need a vesa driver for the diamond speedstar x that works i ve tried several and none work for the hicolor modes john cormack cormackj access digex com
comp.graphics	re delaunay triangulation in article lsk v inn c caspian usc edu zyeh caspian usc edu zhenghao yeh writes does anybody know what delaunay triangulation is is there any reference to it is it useful for creating d objects if yes what s the advantage there is a vast literature on delaunay triangulations literally hundreds of papers a program is even provided with every copy of mathematica nowadays you might look at this if you are interested in using it for creating d objects article boissonnat author j d boissonnat title geometric structures for three dimensional shape representation journal acm transactions on graphics month october year volume number pages
comp.graphics	re rumours about do the does exist it s number was licensed to philips to make their own variant this chip includes extra featurfes such as more i o ports i c bus making it more microcontroller like because of the confusion with numbering philips other products in the range with the core have been given differend numbers like pcf or pcd or something
comp.graphics	gif to bmp i m not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question if not please forgive me and point me in the right direction does anybody know of a program that converts gif files to bmp files and if so where can i ftp it from any help would be greatly appreciated please respond via e mail as i do not read this group very often thanks scott
comp.graphics	point within a polygon in article apr uk bull co uk scrowe hemel bull co uk writes i am looking for an algorithm to determine if a given point is bound by a polygon does anyone have any such code or a reference to book containing information on the subject regards simon function puntbinnenpolygoon auteur cornelis wessels datum omschrijving bepaalt of de aangeboden vector d p binnen of op de rand van het polygoon p valt wijzigingen clibstatus puntbinnenpolygoon polygoon p vector d p vector d o v w index aantal snijpunten n n aantal snijpunten n geefpolygoonlengte p geefpolygoonrandpunt p n o for n n n n geefpolygoonrandpunt p n v if o x p x v x p x o x p x v x p x w x p x interpoleerlineair o v w if w x p x w y p y return clibsucces else if w y p y aantal snijpunten kopieervector d v o if aantal snijpunten return cliberbuiten else return clibsucces cornelis wessels krommenoord zt rotterdam the netherlands kewe bskewe atr bso nl
comp.graphics	re any graphics packages available for aix in apr sun x res utc com mark sun x res utc com mark stucky writes in pr qninniag tahko lpr carel fi ari suutari ari tahko lpr carel fi wrote does anybody know if there are any good d graphics packages available for ibm rs aix i m looking for something like dec s gks or hewlett packards starbase both of which have reasonably good support for different output devices like plotters terminals x etc try graphigs from ibm it is an excellent package doug doug egan it s not what you got lockheed engineering and sciences co it s what you give houston tx tesla email egan blkbox com
comp.graphics	re vesa standard vga svga programming how vesa standard works any documentation for vesa standard the vesa standard can be requested from vesa vesa north first street suite san jose ca ask for the vesa vbe and super vga programming starndards vesa also defines local bus and other standards the vesa standard only addresses ways in which an application can find out info and capabilities of a specific super vga implementation and to control the video mode selection and video memory access you still have to set your own pixels at a higher resolution than x x or x x vga mode where the video memory a affff is no longer sufficient to hold all info what is the trick to do fast image manipulation i heard about memory mapping or video memory bank switching but know nothing on how it is implemented any advice anyone vesa defines a window that is used to access video memory this window is anchored at the spot where you want to write and then you can write as far as the window takes you usually k windows have granularities so you can t just anchor them anywhere also some implementations allow two windows my interest is in x x mode should this mode be called svga mode what is the technique for fast image scrolling for the above mode how to deal with different svga cards this is vesa mode h there is a set display start function that might be useful for scrolling your guidance to books or any other sources to the above questions would be greatly appreciated please send me mail your best bet is to write vesa for the info there have also been announcements on this group of vesa software karl schultz schultz vnet ibm com these statements or opinions are not necessarily those of ibm
comp.graphics	re please recommend d graphics library for mac rgc bcstec ca boeing com robert g carpenter writes hi netters i m building a cad package and need a d graphics library that can handle some rudimentry tasks such as hidden line removal shading animation etc can you please offer some recommendations it s really not that hard to do there are books out there which explain everything and the basic d functions translation rotation shading and hidden line removal are pretty easy i wrote a program in a few weeks witht he help of a book and would be happy to give you my source also quickdraw has a lot of d functions built in and think pascal can access them and i would expect that think c could as well if you can find out how to use the quickdraw graphics library it would be an excellent choice since it has a lot of stuff and is built into the mac so should be fast libertarian atheist semi anarchal techno rat i define myself tsa cellar org
comp.graphics	questions about plane eqn method of hidden surface removal what are the main advantages of this method i have seen it described and the algiorithm seems a little bit long i developed my own method which requires that the points be in a counter clockwise order and returns whether you are looking at the back or the front similar to the plane eqn method it uses few calculations however basically it is several comparisons the only disadvantage i see is that it must be done after the transformation from view coordinates to coordinates to display on the screen which means that a little more calculation isneeded beforehand my method basically figures out whether the points that will appear on the screen are clockwise or counterclockwise when looking at the back of something the points occur in an opposite direction from the front so merely by figuring out which way the points go you can tell whether you are looking at the back or front of a d polygon has anyone heard of this method before it is so simple i doubt i am the first to think of it libertarian atheist semi anarchal techno rat i define myself tsa cellar org
comp.graphics	reprints i have a few reprints left of chapters from my book visions of the future these include reprints of chapters probably of interest to readers of this forum including current techniques and development of computer art by franz szabo forging a career as a sculptor from a career as computer programmer by stewart dickson fractals and genetics in the future by h joel jeffrey i d be happy to send out free reprints to researchers for scholarly purposes until the reprints run out just send me your name and address thanks cliff cliff watson ibm com
comp.graphics	church related graphics i am looking for some good quality graphics files which are suitable for use in church related presentations i prefer vector but anything would be helpful if you know of bulletin boards which have collections of this nature or commercial products please inform me by email haston utkvx utk edu wayne haston
comp.graphics	pc fastest line circle drawing routines help hi all in short looking for very fast assembly code for line circle drawing on svga graphics complete i am thinking of a simple but fast molecular graphics program to write on pc or clones ball and stick type reasons programs that i ve seen are far too slow for this purpose platform class machine x or x vga graphics speed is important color for non rendering purpose is enough may stay at x for speed reason hope the code would be generic enough for different svga cards my own card is based on trident c not vesa what i m looking for fast very fast routines to draw lines circles simple shapes on above mentioned svga resolutions presumably in assembly languagine yes very fast please related codes to help rotating zooming animating the drawings on screen drawings for beginning would be lines circles mainly think of text else later you know the way molecular graphics rotates zooms a molecule and any other codes preferentially in c that can help the project final remarks non profit expected to become share free ware any help is appreciated thanks frankie lau tammy harvard edu ps pls also email i may miss reply post
comp.graphics	re rumours about do in article apr mercury unt edu sean mcmains mcmains unt edu writes in article apr rchland ibm com ricardo hernandez muchado ricardo rchland vnet ibm com writes and cd i s cpu doesn t help much either i understand it is a supposedly a variation of a running at something like mhz with this speed you truly need sprites wow a i d be very interested to get my hands on one of these especially considering the fact that motorola has not yet released the which is supposedly the next in the x lineup d sean the exists ricardo the animation playback to which lawrence was referring in an earlier post is plain old quicktime with the compact video codec i ve seen digitized video some of apple s early commercials to be precise running on a centris at about fps very nicely bit color depth i would expect that using the same algorithm a risc processor should be able to approach full screen full motion animation though as you ve implied the processor will be taxed more with highly dynamic material sean mcmains check out the gopher phone university of north texas new bands info server fax p o box at seanmac acs unt edu e mail denton tx mcmains unt edu sean i don t want to get into a mini war by what i am going to say but i have to be a little bit skeptic about the performance you are claiming on the centris you ll see why please no flames i reserve those for c s m a i was in chicago in the last consumer electronics show and apple had a booth there i walked by and they were showing real time video capture using a radious or supermac card to digitize and make right on the spot quicktime movies i think the quicktime they were using was the old one they digitized a guy talking there in x xx something it played back quite nicely and in real time the guy then expanded the window resized to x by xx in y i think and the frame rate decreased enough to notice that it wasn t fps or about fps anymore it dropped to like fps then he increased it just a bit more and it dropped to fps then i asked him what mac he was using he was using a quadra don t know what model to do it and he was telling the guys there that the