Bible-beater pilots

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 08:46:11 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

that's ridiculous! Look back in history!

I have. The worst regimes are the "godless" ones.

Look at all the harm religious
people have brought over the world.

We going to have that argument again?

I guess people really aren't listening to me. Or they don't study
history.

Rob

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 09:16:57 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

so your theory that the world is in the shape it's in now
due to religion does not ring completely true.


Not exclusively because of religion, but looking back, it is one of the
primary propaganda machines to bring evil over the world.

Agreed. What you've identified is the tool of the demagogue, not his
motivation, which is far more primal.

Rob

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 22:35:38 GMT, Don Tuite
wrote:

Testing a hypothesis is what got Moses' ass in trouble -- whacking the
rock with his stick, when the Big Guy had just told him to order it
verbally to gush water. No Promised Land for poor Moe.

One: Moses was on face-to-face speaking terms with God. There is
enough in the text of the pentateuch to suggest that the God he saw
looked human in form. ("Moses spoke to God face to face." "I'll show
you my back parts only", and so forth. I'll look it all up if anyone
cares.)

Whacking the rock was not scientific inquiry; the guy had been through
bringing down seven plagues, lifting up his arms to keep his side on
the winning side of a battle, parting (or drying up, you take your
pick) the Red (Reed) Sea. Conversing with a bush. He had a consistent
picture of God. No need for Moe to have faith; he'd been through the
fire already, so to speak. He knew. And then did the wrong thing
anyway.

In my church, we hold this story up as a lesson in *pride*, not faith.

Thus is Faith defined in Exodus.

Two: You're using what you commonly hold as an untrue myth to bolster
a point about faith. How that supports your point, when the premise is
to reject the book altogether and out of hand, sits a bit beyond me.

Rob

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 22:02:40 -0500, Andrew Gideon
wrote:

Where do you find faith defined as "interested in the outcome"?

In Mormonism, which rejects much of the common definitions of various
liturgical terms, in favor of stuff that makes a different kind of
sense. Because Mormonism is a minority religion worldwide (something
like 0.1% of the world population) you're not likely to find its
usages in the dictionary, unless the terms are exclusive to it.

One example, if you can get past the 19th-century scriptural-sounding
English, is he

http://scriptures.lds.org/alma/32/21#21

And another, here, which proposes an experiment of sorts on "the
word", interpreted by Mormons to mean pretty much any proposition, but
especially the stuff found in scriptures:

http://scriptures.lds.org/alma/32/26-30#26

Rob

"Wdtabor" wrote in message
...
That is not to say that state licensing boards are evil, but they really
don't
serve a purpose that the insurance industry cannot fulfill just as well,
at
lower cost.

I gather that presently dentists must be licensed by the state board, and
that is a requirement with legal penalties for non-compliance. If this
changes to a system where insurance companies determine who is competent to
practice, then to have some protections for the public (liability and
competence) there would need to be a way for the public to know which
dentists carry insurance. If there was no legal requirement to carry
insurance and no way for the public to know whether or not their
practicioner carried it the public would suddenly be at a major
disadvantage. How would you propose to set this up?

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 08:46:31 -0500, "Trent Moorehead"
wrote:

After looking at all the harm religion has brought over mankind, how can
one
not fight it whereever it rears its ugly head - if one wants to remain a
halfway moral being.

I guess I should cancel my plans to deliver Thanksgiving dinner to the needy
tomorrow. Since it's on behalf of my church.

I guess you better. After all, according to the atheists here, if your
motivation is religious, you must not be moral.

Rob

Rob,

I guess people really aren't listening to me. Or they don't study
history.


or they don't agree with you ;-)

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

In article , Chris W wrote:
Religion is very personal, there are ways to

Indeed. My personal beliefs are that Usenet posts should be =80
characters wide, but evidently not everybody accepts that particular
belief or practise :-)

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Thomas Borchert wrote:

Rob,

I guess people really aren't listening to me. Or they don't study
history.


or they don't agree with you ;-)


Really. It's tough to have a discussion with someone that makes up
definitions for words. If he's not even willing to use a language
properly, what chance is there for logic or history? It's too easy to make
things up, and arguing against that is a fool's game.

When I realized that he'd countered my dictionary citation with some
referenced scripture...well, there's little point to this.

- Andrew

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 11:51:46 -0500, Andrew Gideon
wrote:

Really. It's tough to have a discussion with someone that makes up
definitions for words.

What?! Point to the spot where *I* made up a definition for a word.

I gave you a whole alternate worldview, embraced by millions of
people, even if they are a significant minority. I gave you its
source, not written by me, and therefore not my contrivance. I gave
you its fundamentals. I gave you the reason why the definition is not
found in a dictionary.

Therefore, I didn't make up definitions for words, and the remainder
of your reasoning on that line is a really simplistic straw man. And
alleging so in this thread is ad hominem. "He's religious, therefore
we must not take any of his ideas seriously, no matter what."

It seems you'd rather attack a popular straw man than consider what a
different outlook might do to the fundamentals of a belief system
which is *not* atheism. I agree that that makes a good discussion very
difficult, but it is not I who has a problem with reason and logic
this time.

When I realized that he'd countered my dictionary citation with some
referenced scripture...well, there's little point to this.

You ask what source contains my notion, and I tell you. You dismiss
the notion because the idea is contained in scripture (a word whose
etymology reduces to "stuff written down", by the way). [1]

I didn't claim for you that the scripture was divine. I didn't swoon
about its heavenly source. I have no expectation that you'll click the
link and have a conversion experience of any kind.

I explained that that was the source of the *idea*. That was the
answer to your question:

I don't follow your definition of faith, as used here. Would you be so kind
as to provide that definition (instead of an example)?

And you answer that kindness by calling me the player in a fool's
game.

Address the *idea* on its *merits*, and you have the basis for arguing
the point of it. But if you apparantly can't stomach a proposition
because of its source, (which is basic logical fallacy; so much for
the atheist's worship of human reason) then and only then will there
be little point.

In any case, did you actually read the sentences which convey the
idea, or not? If not, what the hell are you afraid of?

Rob, who *has* read Rand, and rejected it on the merits

[1] At any rate, ask a "traditional" Christian minister whether or not
that particular reference is scripture, and why, and watch the
vitriolic denials fly.