gregjohn wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
>> On a side note, recent research has shown that when "thinking about
>> god", we do so in the same way that we would think about, "What would
>> the neighbor do, if I took his news paper." I.e., we imagine what would
>> would do as such a thing, and draw attributions from that. Which is of
>> course, why gods never "reveal" to people things that contradict their
>> own prejudices, tell them to do things they didn't one some level want
>> to do, or otherwise add anything useful to the conversation. One might
>> as well be watching someone employ the so called "solicited
>> communication" method, by which people convince themselves that their
>> own "helping" of an autistic child is "really the child", and not, as
>> evidence shows, the parent/practitioner themselves expressing their own
>> "knowledge" and understanding through the medium.
>>
>> In other words, the moment we went from general, "The other ape may
>> steal my food.", to, "I would steal his food, so he is probably plotting
>> to steal mine.", we "invented" god to fill in the gaps where the world
>> acted against or for us, as an explanation for why things seemed to
>> either go right, or wrong, for us. Call it, another nail in the coffin
>> of the idea that design was involved from something else's side of the
>> equation. ;)
>>
> 
> 
> 
> Oh my, they've just scientifically proven  Hebrews 8:10!
> 
> 
> Intelligent Design **is** loopy.  The Old Earth Creationists I subscribe to,
> folks who look for religious inferences in the scientific observations around
> us,  say that ID is loopy.
> 
> Back to your proof above. Philosophy will always find a way around scientific
> data.  I once read about men's reactions to learning that men were
> psychologically wired to be filled with lust at most of the women that passed
> them by.
> Some men said, "Hey, I'm WIRED this way!  Party!!" and used it as justification
> to be promiscuous.
> Other men said, "Oh, that's just my hormones! Whew! So I'm really not *more* in
> love with that blond at that next table than I am with my own wife. I can
> relax."
> 
> If you're biased against finding a god, you'll be able to come up with
> philosophical ruses all day long.
> 

Snort.. No one is biased "towards" finding one, they have to be taught 
to believe in them. Mind, we invent them all the time as a child. The 
tree creature that scratches the window, the monster hiding under the 
bed, the strange shadow the follows you around, etc. We invent things 
that we "imagine" control some aspect of the world around us all the 
time. Then someone tells us to, "grow up, the only *real* one is this 
one that controls the universe and everything in it. Oh, and only *our* 
all powerful, all seeing, able to do anything, version is the *right* 
one." Truth is, everyone starts out an atheist. You only believe in god, 
instead of the "forest spirits", or some other entity(ies), because that 
is what people "told you" where the correct answer, and because, unlike 
some of us, you refuse to accept the logical, non-philosophical, 
conclusion that if the monster under the bed doesn't steal your socks, 
maybe some god doesn't spend time watching you pee either.

See, the sort of people that used the, "I am wired that way", argument 
fail on two counts - 1. They presume that what ever they read on the 
subject is the "final" answer, and its never the final answer. 2. That 
"wired" means you can't change the wiring, which is only "partly" true. 
You can make someone a sociopathic chauvinist, or someone so 
pro-feminist that they can't think for themselves, and everything 
between, with the same "basic" wiring. Anyone reading anything else from 
it is as big a fool as the people that insist that anyone alive has an 
internally consistent, rational, believable, and not-totally-pointless 
definition of what a god is, and which one is the right one. Its all 
philosophical fung shui, everyone arranging the funiture to match what 
they imagine is the best design for their own desires, insisting that, 
because they once read some place that wind chimes relax people, that 
they even know what that means, and that they are using "logic" (or 
worse, science) to reach their conclusions. In reality, what they are 
using has jack to do with science at all. Its an abuse of it.

Look, here is the thing. People constantly say they "know" god exists. 
Some of them point at old books, which more and more scholars admit 
constitute "no" evidence at all, and are wrong as often as they get 
anything right. Some people point at the number of people that "believe" 
in it, while failing to grasp that this is only proof that you can teach 
people to believe anything, if everyone else already believes it as 
well. If you where born in the time of Greece, no one would be babbling 
about the Christian god as the "right one", at all. They would either 
insist you where nuts, because there are many of them, or that you where 
totally insane, because the "real" god was one of a long list of them.

Many people point to personal experience and "knowledge" of god really 
existing. But, here is the problem: If people all *universally* think 
about god the same way they do Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or their 
imaginary friend, is, "thought about", "experienced", and "see he/she/it 
to act in the world", then you just lost "personal experience" as any 
kind of valid measure for such a beings existence. Its basic logic. You 
can't claim that something is "real", because the experience of it is 
qualitatively different that "fake" experiences, if every single 
"non-personal" measurement of the experience says, "No, in point of 
fact, you are treating the experience exactly the same as if you where 
imagining some non-real person's actions, under circumstances such as 
someone asking you the question, 'What do you think someone else would 
do in this situation.', and even less so if the *response* you get in 
your head is also *indistinguishable* from asking, 'What would Zippy, 
your imaginary best bunny friend, do in this situation.'"

Point being, I would love to have you explain to me what "valid" 
criteria you imagine would "prove" that your experience of what ever god 
you believe in is "real". And how that experience isn't at all 
"questionable", should it turn out that the thought processes are 
identical to that of imagining "anyone" real or imaginary, solving a 
problem, or taking some action. And, more to the point, what such 
evidence would be, which isn't "precisely" what you accuse me of doing, 
"Philosophically reaching the conclusion I want to, based on a previous 
bias to look for it."

Oh, and claiming this is, quite frankly, insulting anyway. I spent 20 
years of my life "looking for" a reason to believe in god, with the 
presupposition that miracles do happen, some sort of "real" magic 
existed, and that spirits, souls, ghosts, etc., where possibly real. All 
I found was con artists, liars, made up stories, testimony from people 
who changed their stories over time, to make them more believable, and 
an endless list of fake miracles, alternative, and more rational 
explanations, etc. Not once did I *ever* find a *reason* to believe in 
any of it. If I have a bias today against finding such a thing, its due 
to 20 years of *failing* to find any in the first place. And, I know 
other people that have spent more than that **believing** whole 
heartedly in this stuff, who eventually found themselves confronted with 
the glaring realization that something about the real world didn't "fit" 
what they where biased to see, and suddenly found themselves reexamining 
"everything", only finding that nearly everything they believed in had 
holes, gaps, errors, factual omissions, out right lies, etc.

In truth, atheist that "convert" to faith never got to their "starting 
point" by thinking about anything. Its like having money. Some people 
are privileged to be bored into it, and become Paris Hilton. Such an 
"atheist" would join up with the first cult, that made them feel more 
"wanted" than they already are, at the drop of a hat, because they 
"never" once thought about why they reached their conclusion, or so much 
as saw anything about religion more complicated than old movies and the 
occasional lame cartoon. Some are actually the supposed "angry" people, 
who unable, or unwilling, to be angry at the idiots making their life 
miserable, opt to be angry at what they can rant and whine at, and 
pretend to attack, without being arrested for it, they way they would be 
if they beat the heck out of their neighbor. You can think of this sort 
as the same type of moron that takes out 12 credit cards, then uses them 
to pay off each other. They don't know what they believe, they don't 
know what they are doing, and they don't have a clue what the 
consequence of their dumb behavior is going to do to them, not the least 
being that they will probably join up with the first group of people 
willing to help them "fix" their problem. Some however end up with 
money, either inheriting it, or winning the lotto, or the like, and they 
*actually* spend the time trying to figure out what to do with it. Still 
others spend a **lot** of time working *really* hard at it, and get 
people telling them, "Man, why are you buying that atheist salad! 
Everyone knows you should buying a McChurch!", because, you know, 
spending a few hours each week listening to someone else "tell you" what 
something says, and occasionally reading the "nice" parts, is the same 
as spending 30+ years (in some cases) reading "every page" without bias, 
reading dozens of other religious texts, reading humanist documents, 
reading science, and coming to the conclusion that McChurch is roughly 
the same thing as McDonald's. A cheap, poor, and low quality, imitation 
of the real world.

But, yeah.. I am sure even the ones that "used to be" priests where all 
"biased" against finding a god any place, and suggesting so isn't 
insulting at all.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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