Grassblade wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Grassblade wrote:
>>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>> Of course he can. Whether you believe in science and whether you believe
>>>> in God are orthogonal. Many scientists are rather devout. It's *because*
>>>> religion is illogical that this is possible.
>>> It is?
>> Yes. In my experience, it is.
>>
>> Take, DeCartes, for example. His first step, "I think, therefore I am"
>> is logical. His second (or so) step is "I know there is evil, hence
>> there must be good" isn't. There could be many kinds of evil, and no
>> good.
> Descartes was also a philosopher, apart from mathematician. Philosophers have
> this (annoying, IMHO) tendency to split everything in twain. However, if you
> know the word "good", and observe only degrees of evil, what do you think a
> philosopher living in such a world would call the less evil tier? His step is
> illogical only if you define an absolute concept of good, which could
> potentially not exist. But if you define relative concepts, I cannot imagine
> how observing (relative) evil could not lead to defining (relative) good.
> 

Personally, I think it would be easier to define good in strict terms
and define evil as either the lack, or opposite, of good. To do so
otherwise, as you suggest, leads good to be that lesser tier of evil. I
believe De Sade explored that in Justine. It does not present a very
pleasant picture of 'good' in such a situation.

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nemesis wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> I was not comparing JHVH to Ra, Zeus or anything.  Just stating that, regardless
>>> of the different divine personas the pagans applied to represent the forces of
>>> nature, the one true God is the one who really rules over the many different
>>> forces of nature.
>> So, the satanists are really worshiping the same God that you do? As
>> well as the Mayans doing human sacrifice?
> 
> no, I'm saying they misinterpreted God's actions and began making up their own
> idols to represent the many facets of what can't be physically represented.
> One of the reasons why God wanted to wipe out life from Earth.
> 

So, which is it? They all are worshiping your God, or they aren't.

> don't put the satanists on the same level as the pagan gods:  the satanists
> worship the wrong side of the same Islamic/Christian/Jewish faith,

Which satanists, let's be sure we are on the same page for this
arguement. LaVey satanists, rebellious teenage satanists, or some other
unifying branch that I haven't heard of yet?

 the pagans
> just didn't know any better.
> 
> 

Yeah, now I'm insulted. The pagan religions that were formed, at least
according to some modern science, around the same time as your Eden
stories would have taken place by biblical time lines, are obviously
worshiping the same deity as you. Regardless of the fact that your God
did not take the same form to them and never bothered to correct their
opinions until long after they were all dead. Obviously, they are the
ones who were wrong.

What evidence would you put forth that you are right and they are not?
What evidence would it take to convince you otherwise? A giant glowing
being coming out of the sky and speaking to you personally, claiming to
be Ra or Marduk, or would you write those off as being Satan in
disguise? And why, if those pagans were right and you are wrong, are
they still the 'poor pagans' who seem to be so misled?

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Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at vtSPAM.edu"> wrote:
> So if I offered to pray to Ishtar for your well being, would that be
> insulting?

yes.  Spare me from malevolent entities!

> before you
> offer the suggestion that all other deities are just guises for your
> Enemy, realize that I might believe that JHVH is just another guise for,
> lets say, Lamashtu.

from wikipedia:
"In Mesopotamian mythology Lamashtu (Sumerian Dimme) was a female demon,
monster, malevolent goddess or demigoddess that menaced women during childbirth
and, if possible, kidnapped children while they were breastfeeding, she would
gnaw on their bones and suck their blood, as well as being charged with a
number of other evil deeds."

yes, clearly JHVH's ways.  fucked up world twisting fucked up minds, I tell you.

> Now, if my offer is insulting to you, think how your offer would appear
> to me.

I can understand satanists being insulted.

I feel sorry for you guys.  I sincerely hope it's just too much crack rather
than real will to side with Evil.

best wishes...

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In article <web.475dcb9d922777eb6c8c02a10@news.povray.org>, 
nomail@nomail says...
> > The religious stance of "if we can't explain it, it must be God" isn't
> > valid logic.
> Hmm, right, but I think I read it correctly. I take Patrick's statement t
o mean
> the "not" as:
> you first have to provide evidence that divine intervention was needed to
 make
> that happen, not (that) human action was needed (or whatever). The contex
t
> doesn't seem to be "not human" in the sense of negation of human.
> 
Since the specific context was Christianities historical success, when 
compared to alternatives, its only reasonable to propose that the 
largest contributing factor, if not the supernatural, would presumably 
be humans. I rather doubt squid, parrots or termites would have had a 
huge impact on whether or not it was successful. It was a human 
endeavor, so its reasonable to presume that, according to the criteria 
given, the answers is either A) humans found the religion useful, as 
tool to defuse at least part of Jewish uprising, undermine other 
competing religions, and consolidate power in a single ideology that 
they could presumably have some control over, or B) god sticks his 
fingers into things in a bunch of key situations, so as the *bring 
about* the events (yet does so in such a way that no one can find any 
evidence of it without first *starting* from the stance of believing in 
him).

I find the later *very* improbable, for a number of reasons. 1. The 
intentional parallels of events used by Titus to try to make himself 
look like the second coming. 2. The fact that the OT was *very* clear 
that their savior was *supposed* to be a war lord, come to save them 
from foreigners, and instead talked peace, was conveniently betrayed by 
the people he supposedly came to lead, and all but told his followers 
that they should ignore all offense against them, when the greatest 
offenses where coming from the Romans, who had spent the last 50 years 
trying to crush the Jewish people. 3. The fact that not even "newer" 
documents purporting to prove any of it happened are from earlier than 
50 years after the events, when those Romans that had adopted the 
religion where in power, the war with the Jews had left the Jewish 
people broken (or at least sufficiently pacified) and unable to protest 
anything much, and Rome had nearly total control of everything from 
England to the borders of parts of Asia.

That is of course the problem with your great "gains" that have been 
supposedly made in proving any of it. You still can't provide anything 
**from his own time** that proves any of it actually happened, even 
among people that where scholars by nature, and recorded every birth, 
death, sold cow, odd event witnessed, etc. One would *think* some place 
in the thousands of documents from the time he was supposed to be alive 
would include some mention of someone that did everything *short of* 
selling his cow to the local butcher. There is nothing. We can find 
records, despite being buried and hidden, suggesting there may have been 
"some" truth in the whole Exodus bit, evidence strongly suggesting where 
the Noah story came from, places and archaeological evidence vindicating 
the existence of many thing and places in the OT, even if specific 
events are presumed exaggerated or can be reasonably linked to possible 
earth quakes, volcanos, etc. (there was one such very large volcano at 
that 500 year earlier point that exodus may have actually happened, for 
example). For the entire contents of the NT, we have the word of one 
person that was young enough to have *maybe* been there, but close to a 
half century between, a letter by the same person that **claims** he 
wrote all of it decades earlier, but, I don't know, lost his hat with 
the magic tablets in it or something? No explanation is given in it for 
why no earlier work has ever been found, and since the letter was 
written during the same period as the works it claims where *really* 
written earlier, some *other* evidence is necessary to prove those 
stories "did" come from an earlier point. At best, we can say that some 
people mentioned existed, in a place we know existed, in a society that 
was, if anything, even more obsessed with recording every tiny fart 
someone made than the Jewish people where. And yet, all the records from 
the period can muster is a name, and some statements, made half a 
century after the fact, attesting that all of it happened, but somehow, 
no one bothered to record any of it...

Heck, we have better proof that the walls of Jericho fell (though the 
fact that the evidence in that case implies that they fell and where 
rebuilt about a dozen times in a 200 year period, one of the last times 
do to an earthquake that also destroyed half the other coastal cities in 
the region doesn't help the claim that the story is accurate). But at 
least we can give the odds that someone attacked it then a 50-50 chance, 
and not a, "Umm? Where is the evidence the dude existed in the first 
place?"

But, I don't think there is much point in continuing the argument. Its 
already been made pretty clear that no logical argument, facts or 
evidence that might contradict the views of those defending the validity 
of the supposed history in the Bible is going to sway them from a) 
ignoring the contradictions or b) questioning the existence of the 
invisible phantom supposedly behind it. And, I am by no means any where 
as near as knowledgeable as some of the others that I have seen dissect 
and argue the factual and historical details of this whole thing. And, 
they get at tired as I do trying to present any of it to people that 
flat out refuse to accept the possibility that hundreds of books written 
*specifically* by people that where more interesting in proven their 
religion right, and finding and examining the true historical record, 
might have just "maybe" had a severely biased interpretation of the 
facts. Heck, just look at archeology. There was once a bias that mummies 
where meaningless, compared to everything else around them, and that 
some old bones found on a alter where just, "random refuse places in box 
#43." Today, if someone sold a mummy to burn it in a fire place, they 
would end up in jail, and someone finding the skull of some big dino on 
an alter, would ask, "Why the heck did the people that built this place 
put it there?", not, "Hmm. Its junk. Just shove it in a box."

Its not hard, given that, for a time, the church had absolute control of 
early science and all colleges, and the Victorian ideals, which still 
hold a strong influence in the US today, later proclaimed *some* ideas 
so horrible and unacceptable that one simply didn't *ever* suggest them 
(even if evidence suggested they might be right), to imagine a serious 
bias problem in works describing early church history. Its almost a sign 
of fundamental insanity for someone to suggest that this *hasn't* 
distorted both the interpretation of historical facts that *are* in 
evidence, and to strongly imply why some people would much rather 
imagine ones that have *never* been in evidence, rather than admit that, 
once again, the churches interpretation is the one that is badly out of 
sync of reality.

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Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at vtSPAM.edu"> wrote:
> The pagan religions that were formed, at least
> according to some modern science, around the same time as your Eden
> stories would have taken place by biblical time lines, are obviously
> worshiping the same deity as you.

yes they are, in the sense that there is only one God ruling over the forces of
nature.  They are not worshipping JHVH though when they make their
representations to be human-like, full of passions and weaknesses.  They are
certainly not talking to JHVH when asking for revenge, death and all negative
traits...

> What evidence would you put forth that you are right and they are not?
> What evidence would it take to convince you otherwise? A giant glowing
> being coming out of the sky and speaking to you personally, claiming to
> be Ra or Marduk, or would you write those off as being Satan in
> disguise?

JHVH can't be physically represented.  Except when came in flesh, the same flesh
He breathed life in.

> And why, if those pagans were right and you are wrong, are
> they still the 'poor pagans' who seem to be so misled?

wu.

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> Its almost a sign
> of fundamental insanity for someone to suggest that this *hasn't*
> distorted both the interpretation of historical facts that *are* in
> evidence, and to strongly imply why some people would much rather
> imagine ones that have *never* been in evidence, rather than admit that,
> once again, the churches interpretation is the one that is badly out of
> sync of reality.

are all atheists really this boring?  That last sentence was pretty long, just
as the hundreds of them before.  I had to skip and lost track.  sorry...

you sound like Fox Mulder.  you know:  "I want to believe".  Because you're
obsessed in trying to find physical proofs of Jesus existence.

forget it:  he came as a humble man, too insignificant for the ones in power,
but sufficiently of an agitator to receive death penalty... nothing too shabby
to figure in official records...

though I find it funny you don't mention the James Cameron documentary about
Jesus tomb...

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:475e18c4$1@news.povray.org...
> nemesis wrote:
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> You know, number 11, accept Jesus as your Personal Savior? Didn't that
>>> get slipped in there a bit back?
>>
>> Jesus is God in flesh.  Rule number 1.
>
> Then what are the other 9? I thought you were talking about Moses' laws.
>

Accepting Jesus as your Saviour is the only thing that will get you into 
heaven. No good deed can get you into heaven because we are all sinfull. If 
you accept Jesus as your saviour you won't want to do the wrong things.


-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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In article <web.475d627d922777ebf48316a30@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > Are you really missing the point that for people that don't believe in
> > God, or even just **your god**, telling them "bless you" **is** the sam
e
> > thing as saying "fuck you"?
> 
> no, I don't understand how wishing for one's well-being is the same as cu
rsing
> them.  You don't need to believe in what I believe to benefit from best w
ishes.
> 
> I can understand it, though, in the light of we living in a fucked up, im
oral
> world.  People without directions in their lifes tend to see everything a
s gray
> rather than black and white.  it's all the same for them, so not surprisi
ng at
> all...
> 
I have seen how people who see the world in clear black and white act. 
They are called sociopaths. And just to be clear. I have never, nor has 
anyone I know that ranges from mildly religious to atheist, *ever* raped 
anyone, killed anyone, lied on the scale that self claimed believers do, 
or committed any of the other large scale sins that *you* are likely 
talking about when saying that we live in an immoral world. However, 
***every*** person I have ever met that thinks the Bible is literal 
truth, believes they are saved, or otherwise thinks I am the one going 
to hell is invariably a hypocrite, lies constantly, would steal formula 
from a starving baby if they thought God wanted them to, threatens to 
kill people, has committed either rape, adultery, pedophilia, or all of 
those together, and more than a few, attach themselves to other 
*believers* like leeches, to suck money, time, and anything else they 
can get their hands on, from the fools that stand there and defend them 
for doing it.

And, the odd thing is, these people do this crap on national TV 24/7 on 
some stations their scamming for the masses pay for, and no one blinks 
and eye. If I so much as walked into half the jobs in this town and told 
the boss that I simply didn't believe in his/her god, he/she would find 
a way to fire my ass so fast that I wouldn't even notice I passed the 
door frame on the way out (and they would then slander me, make up 
stories about me, and do everything in their power to make sure I never 
got another job working for a "Good Christian(tm)" ever again." Yeah, 
the world is a screwed up place. And if you opened your damn eyes you 
would realize that 25% of the people making it that way claim they are 
doing so to serve your god, another 25% blame everything they don't like 
on nonbelievers (which includes stuff they caused), and praise god for 
everything that goes right, almost all of the rest just let them get by 
with it, because they are too busy defending the faith against 
supposedly false attacks, pretending that nothing wrong with the world 
is their problem, and/or defending some of the former two groups, 
because they actually agree with some minor point of irrational 
obsession, illogical conclusion, or crass bigotry (and failing to grasp 
why defending them on that one point is bloody stupid, if 90% of the 
rest of the BS they spout is offensive, even to them).

One might as well blindly defend Mao for his stance on religion, while 
ignoring his insanity, war mongering and mass murder. One defends the 
*position*, if its reasonable, honesty, ethics, fundamental moral 
thought, and just plain common sense implies that you do not defend 
people on the grounds of one point of agreement, if everything else they 
say or do is unacceptable and vile.

But, then that is one of the things you don't get, right. We don't have 
saints, authority figures, kings, or people raised to some high, 
unassailable position, from which they may not be challenged. For 
example, I recently told off PZ Myers, who I otherwise almost always 
agree with, when he started acting in a way I thought was stupid and 
counter productive. He defended a rather badly made, crass and 
inappropriate display that some other group of atheists thought to erect 
as a counter to various religious displays. His position, "It served our 
goals, so who cares if it was inappropriate, crass and badly done?" 
Mine, "If we want to claim to be better than the fools we deal with that 
show up here and make excuses for their immorality and lack of ethics, 
by claiming that the act, 'served the greater cause', so the fact that 
it would otherwise be considered wrong was irrelevant." I wasn't too 
genteel about saying it either. I would do the same for any statement 
made by any "leader" we might talk about. The only thing most of you are 
likely to do is send letters of praise to the people that act like fools 
in your system of beliefs, or ignore it, as inconsequential.

However, I don't comprehend the later. Such people are *obviously* 
adding to the evil committed in the world, misleading people into 
believing its acceptable to commit such acts, and generally undermining 
the very things you claim to stand for. I am willing to fight against 
that, by exposing such acts. You... ignore them? Claim they are not your 
problem? Maybe, if you are really ambitious, pray that the slow decline 
into lies, bigotry and hatred of such people will stop, when all 
evidence would seem to suggest that such prayer does nothing? Where is 
your statement to one of these people that they are abhorrent monsters 
that don't deserve to call themselves Christians?

Oh, wait, I forgot, such people don't allow, or actively delete comments 
that might make them seem less than godlike to the morons that read 
them.... But, then we fight someplace else. You don't fight at all. We 
fight with words and talk about morality. You, if you do fight, fight 
the people that are logically on your side on this issue, or worse, opt 
to not fight, because you hate the places that actually *allow* people 
that don't agree with you to post their views (i.e., you are just like 
the people you should be fighting with us). And somehow, the entire 
problem is not too much religion in the hands of lunatics, madmen, 
bigots and the immoral, its a lack of religion among those that don't 
fall for their lies in the first place...

Mind you, I use "you" in this context as a vehicle to make my point. I 
have no idea how many of these traits you personally share, though, your 
views on the subject of why the world is like it is today says a lot of 
me about how many of those things you personally are likely to do, 
believe, think or act on. Such people, and your past statements would 
seem to imply you are at least, in part, one of them, imply a state of 
blindness that only *starts* at blind faith, and merely progresses down 
hill from there.

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In article <475d82a5@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> > the pagans just didn't know any better.
> 
> Ah. Yes. Wow. I'm yet again stunned by your hubris. I don't think in all
 
> my years of talking about religion I've ever had someone tell me that I
 
> really am worshiping their god, I just don't know it.
> 
Actually, that is pretty common. Its one of the list of arguments most 
commonly used by believers. The alternate version is something like, 
"You are angry at god, so *pretend* not to believe in him." Somehow the 
fact that its the moron saying that which is pissing me off, not their 
nonexistent god just whizzes by their head, like it was.. well, some 
invisible imaginary being. lol

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In article <web.475d68a8922777ebf48316a30@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > But that wouldn't matter anyway. I am sure you can do a google and find
> > plenty of modern historians, many of them *specifically* studying
> > Biblical history, that are uncertain, or actively disbelieve, that
> > Jesus, as described in the Bible, ever existed. Its practically common
> > knowledge that they hold this view.
> 
> that's funny.  From one side historians holding that Jesus never existed 
(in
> fact, many have been saying that even from early times very close to thos
e
> days).  From another side, James Cameron and crew "discovered" the lost t
homb
> of Jesus and his wife Mary Magdalene.  From the realm of fiction, we get 
"Da
> Vinci's Code" which seems to support the documentary view that Christ was
 not
> only very real, as very human to the point of having had sons with Mary
> Magdalene and did not ressurect in flesh or at all.  Who do you believe? 
 it's
> a matter of faith, again...
> 
Dude, the Da Vinci Code was written by a believer, based on the BS 
nonsense of **another** believer, who wanted to make himself look like 
he was a) one of the royal line of the Meravinchians (or how ever you 
spell it) and b) a direct descendant of Jesus. It was all pure, self 
serving bullshit, invented by someone who wanted to be something he 
wasn't. Its not a matter of faith at all. We have **masses** of 
evidence, ranging from the original fake documents he invented to try to 
make it seem like it was believable, to actually examinations of the 
places written about in his raving nonsense, which all clearly indicate 
it was all made up, had no basis in actual facts and wasn't even vaguely 
believable. You need to stop watching movies and reading fantasy novels 
and, I don't know, try to actually read a news paper, a magazine article 
describing the BS he pulled, or *something* with a factual basis. lol

> I smell a massive "campaign" against Christianism and religions as a whol
e as
> well.  Many Jews lost their faith and are now regarding the OT as merely
> legends and folk history.  They did not lose their will to conquer and ge
t
> wealthy, though.  Islamic countries are bombarded and their peoples encag
ed.
> Lots of bad things are going through the world these days.  Some would sa
y
> we're approaching the end.  all in the name of free will...
> 
Oh, give me a @!#@!#@! break. The Israeli people are about as atheist as 
you are. Jewish atheists, and I know a few of them, follow the basic 
rules that makes sense to them, but reject all the bullshit, 
***including*** the idiot idea that there is some sort of promised land 
they need to defend, or that its there task to defend/retake it. You are 
about as likely to find and atheist Jew conspiring to attack someone as 
you are to find a Unitarian Universalis hosting a KKK rally. Again, try 
finding some real information about the world, instead of getting all of 
it through the foggy filer of people that want you to believe this kind 
of BS. You haven't the first clue what anyone believes beyond yourself, 
and most of what you believe comes from the same morons that are 
**causing** the evil in this world. How better, after all, to spread 
their influence and power, than to convince you to attack the people 
that are not your enemies, even as they are buying their second or third 
airplane, using the money you stupidly sent them to help fight against 
us.

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