Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> alphaQuad wrote:
> > OK, on to the relevance then. Beliefs are just that, something you want to
> > believe but for which you have no personal experience that would justify it.
> >
> > What's greater then belief? When you KNOW from experience, you do in fact
> > actually know something. Belief is more like a faerie tale.
> >
> > An atheist has beliefs and doesn't know anything. I am particularly interested
> > in these people, because of what I could show them. Call me vulnerable, or just
> > crazy, but if you only KNEW!!!!!!
> >
> This is vastly ironic, coming from someone that, probably, like most,
> lump atheists into some homogeneous group that all agree with each other
> on "beliefs". Its also even more ironic in that you have
>
> a) Belief that the Bible actual describes something that happened.
> Evidence to support it - your belief that you experienced god. The
> evidence of any of it really happening though... Hmm..
>
> b) Belief that such belief makes you better. Ok.. then explain why it is
> that, other than a few exceptions, nearly all wars are religiously
> motivated, and some of the most vile evil people today "mask" themselves
> in your religion. There isn't a lot of evidence than believing in god
> does anything more than provide justification for those that are "sure"
> they are good, to do the things they want, certain in their own minds
> that everything they do is also what god wants. Too bad no one else
> would agree with all their choices, when made based on that criteria.
>
> c) And this one is part and parcel of the denial of science in this
> country. The abject refusal, despite diseases like Alzheimer's, despite
> nearly half the population having to have glasses, despite people losing
> their hearing, despite the known effects of drugs on the mind, despite
> blindingly obvious cases of people seeing things, despite the known
> effects of fasting, which includes hallucinations, despite head injuries
> changing people's personalities, despite "several diseases" that are
> known to induce false religious experiences, and none of which even
> "gets to" the neurological evidence we have now... despite "all" of
> these things, people like alphaQuad imagine that "religious" experiences
> are in some "special" category, for which their "personal" direct
> experiencing of them is 100% infallible, and always right, and
> constitutes 100% undeniable *evidence* of the existence of the main
> character of their favorite faerie tale.
>
> The argument holds about as much water, based on, "knowing from
> experience", as the fools looking for how DNA works by comparing it to
> Chinese language characters. Its pure gibberish. The brain is not
> reliable at telling if its "own" experiences are accurate, and even some
> *Christian* philosophers, and members of the church, over the last 2000
> years, including both Fancis Bacon, and St. Thomas Aquinas, managed to
> figure that out (or at least almost do so). Why is it that, especially
> in the US, there seems to be an absolute outbreak of people that *can't*?
>


I think the problem is that you WERE involved in a false religion, and
mistakenly presume it is THE responsible elucidation of the text.   There is
not anything that is so stupid or wacky or evil that it cannot be said, by some
idiot, to be taken from the bible or the life's work of ML King Jr., or Lincoln
or a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

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