Ariel Paulson wrote:
>> Mark K. Bilbo wrote in message <379417C9.38FC92D9 at god.mminternet.com>...
> >"Jeffrey P. Utz, M.D." wrote:
> >>
> >> Is the truth gained from Christianity, Judism, Isalm or Buhddism any less
> >> true than the truth gained from science?
> >
> >Yes. The latter is useful in the real world, the former is mental
> >masturbation.
> >
>> Not So Fast. I can appreciate your attempt at "objectivity" by pointing out
> that scientific "truth" is useful in the "real world", but you've unduly
> sabotaged your argument by drawing a line between truth and truth.
>> Such cannot be done. Truth remains truth, no matter the source. If you
> *doubt* the truthfulness of what the assorted prophets have said, that is
> one matter, but it is not one you addressed. Mr. Utz's statement was
> directed at truth. This precludes your anti-assessment of what is or is not
> "truth".
--------------------------------------
That wasn't the point. There is scientific "truth" (but no scientist
uses this term) which makes effective claim to utility in the real
world, and then there is "religious truth" (and paradoxically religion
DOES pretend to truth) which doesn't bother to justify itself, and in a
comparison between them it is simply no contest, unless you're willing
to be a liar about your divine revelation in order to oppress others who
are not such lying assholes.
-Steve
> Therefore either all "truth" is useful in the "real world", or all "truth"
> is mental masturbation. You can have your choice, but remember this: Truth
> is defined as "the true or actual state of a matter". Are you capable of
> disproving any of the "truths" dispensed by the world prophets? ------------------------------------
Religion loves to use this "all or nothing" competing-truth crap.
It makes their plea seem more dramatic, when it is just the last refuge
of liars and of con-men.
-Steve
>Considering
> that these "truths" are largely composed of guidelines for living one's
> life -- statements of subjective principle, rarely of objective reality --
> then you are incapable of rendendering any form of judgment save opinion.
-------------------------------------------
You leave out that there are many different opinions among religionists,
but no scientist opposes sensible scientific methods with mere opinion.
Science, for being "unproven" is not opposed by people, because it is
simple enough for anyone to test. Religion makes certain (usually) that
it makes claims ONLY about the unknowable and untestable. It changes
like the breeze with time and yet pretends to divine certainty in the
moment, when all it is is a reflection of the common paradigm of
underlaying cultural paranoia and the worst of cynical evils in people.
-Steve
> As in "I don't like what they have to say." So don't even try. You can
> prove that something *is*, but you can never prove that something is *not*.
> It is, by logic, impossible to prove a negative. You are limited by your
> limited perception.
-----------------------------------
One cannot prove something is "not", but that works both ways. It
neither supports nor opposes religion. To assert that it does is
mere semantic sophistry and a pederasty upon the unwary immature mind.
-Steve
> So remember: just because you think religion is worthless does not mean it
> is. You are disproven on statistical grounds anyway. There have been
> numerous studies that illustrate that people who believe in *a* god, any
> god, and who pray to any capacity, live longer and live happier. Think it's
> funny? Call it a placebo effect if you will. It's still a reality, and
> you're still wrong.
-----------------------------
It is quite likely provable that a frontal lobotomy or lifetime sedation
and brainwashing would also benefit longevity, so that's irrelevant even
if true. If Xtian religion was true it's proponents wouldn't need to
worry about any adherent's longevity, and that's a paradox of its
specious assertions.
One of which is this oft cited and VERY poorly documented assertion that
these idiots live longer! I have not seen it, except in Reader's Digest
and similar such insipid fraudulent rags which commerce in pithey
platitudes. If a terror of living a full life was a religion it would
likely produce long-lived adherents with few decent memories as well,
people afraid to go out much, who have sex little and keep their legs
and arms crossed as much as possible, and just... keep... quiet.
-Steve
> >Oh and religion causes holy wars, inquistions, genocides, fun stuff like
> >that.
>> Really now! Fancy how forgetful you are. Darwinism, perhaps the single
> most powerful and controversial ideology that science has seen since the
> heliocentric universe, is responsible for politically sanctioned racism,
> genocide, the Nazi ideology, and the blind sequestering of anything that
> dares to show its inconsistencies.
------------------------------------
A religious habit of misquoting Darwin is common in your sort. Selection
of the fittest is NOT BETWEEN members of a species nearly as much as it
is between species. And among primates, especially apes and humans,
internecine murder is rare or an abberation which one can go lifetimes
and not see personally among acquaintanceships numbering in the many
thousands of our speciel peers. Your kind never gets the science right.
Classic.
-Steve
> You show your ignorance here again: religion has never been responsible for
> any known atrocity. Religion's name was used, but it was the men behind it
> who caused catastrophe. With the possible exception of Islam, no major
> world religion can, by their books, sanction such atrocities.
--------------------------------------------
Religion claimed the credit for the crusades, till it was unpopular to
do so, and for the murder of "witches" till it was seen as assinine, and
for the chastisement and torture of the indians, till that was seen as
barabaric, and supported fascism from the Vatican, then denied it, and
for the oppression of countless scientists and only finally got round to
apologizing in the last 10 or 15 years. And you imagine that religion is
somehow a harmless idealogy devoid of danger and pretend that the
assinity of religion is devoid of blame for what people do in its
interests, well I'm sorry, we don't believe you anymore.
-Steve
> BTW Don't think I'm some idiot creationist, either. I'm not even a
> Christian. In fact, I despise religion and I don't believe that there's a
> god out there who could ever handle this universe. But unlike you, I take
> everything there is to take with the same open mind, whether it is science
> or not.
------------------------------------------------
Whatever you are, then, you're not very well-informed.
-Steve
> >Creationists say they aren't evolving. I believe them.
>> Neither are atheists. As any logic class will teach you, a non-existence
> can never be fully proven. So if god doesn't exist, we'll never know.
> Don't pretend you do. Otherwise you won't go anywhere.
------------------------------------------
You leave out the possibility that we MIGHT know the truth at some
point, or that we might persist beyond this life, and that could be a
deadly stupid oversight. We have little reason to believe post-mortem
existence or non-existence, but we have never experienced any form of
"non-existence", so existence however modified happens logically to be a
slightly more sensible option than non-existence, whatever the bodies
of others seems to do at what is called "death", we have no evidence of
mind present, yet we are faced with the mighty paradox that no existence
apart from or outside the world/mind as an inseperable unit is even
provable!
We have no REAL way now of knowing whether we please or anger any single
or multiple divine or less than perfect being with some or any of the
various things we do. We only have our deepest feelings to go by. That's
the only place we can't lie to ourselves about what we think or feel or
do or are.
Men write things in order to lie to each other, that's what writing was
invented for by the elite. The bible is actually just the history of how
leaders controlled and abused their people by telling them they knew a
secret the rest didn't know and using their lucky position to validate
themselves as "god's chosen one" in a circular fashion by using their
power to terrorize people.
Biblical "divinity" is fashioned after the divine right of kings, which,
as the U.S. Declaration of Independence shows is not so divine.
The biggest use/abuse of religion has been to abuse people's rights to
free speech and rights to use of the material world and sexual liason
and affliations better to make them produce for rich societal masters
and fight their wars for them and to make them afraid of themselves.
Killing the people who do such things is surely the last and the only
genuine virtue attainable by violence.
-Steve
--
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