karl@osu-dbs.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) (06/12/84)
---------- >From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) >[commenting on Larry Bickford] > He didn't >bother to address that point, because he can't without telling most of you - >not only atheist but Jew, Muslim, and even most Christians - that he has a >holy mission to ram his beliefs down your (our) throats. ---------- I have heard this complaint many, many, many times. "All Christians (at least all those who evangelize a lot, particularly in a public place) are doing nothing more than expressing their desire to cram their own private, personal belief system down others' throats." Well, it's an interesting point, but I'd like to address it from another angle. This article will in all likelihood get me flamed from both sides of the argument, both from Dick Dunn and Rich Rosen, as well as my Christian friends. Let's see what happens. I cd'd to /usr/spool/news/net/religion here on osu-dbs, and I snooped around in its contents for a while, and I compiled some very interesting statistics. Here's the basics (headers have been included, even though they're not technic- ally part of the article): Total Articles 80 Total Lines 5580 Avg Lines/Article 69.75 Total Words 43824 Avg Words/Article 547.8 Total Bytes 276518 Avg Bytes/Article 3457 (My! We are a *verbose* bunch!) All statistics are current as of 12 Jun 1984 at around 10am. Osu-dbs uses standard 2-week expiration of articles. Now, there were 13 articles which were neither Christian nor non-Christian. For example, I excluded the discussion on hermaphrodites (7 articles), since they represent no clear discussion either way. The breakout of articles was otherwise like this: Non-Christian Christian Total Articles 35 32 Total Lines 2597 2517 Avg Lines/Article 74.5 78.6 Total Words 21182 19538 Avg Words/Article 605.5 610.5 Total Bytes 132423 122105 Avg Bytes/Article 3784 3816 All of these statistics are, of course, subject to change as arguments come and go. I think it's quite clear that neither group has a parti- cular monopoly on espousing their views on the net. The Christians have a (slight) tendency to add 4 more lines to their articles, occupying an additional 5 words and 30 bytes (sounds like signature lines to me), while the non-Christians have posted a few more articles. Big deal. So much for the "Christians flame their beliefs down others' throats" argu- ment; non-Christians do it just as much. -- Karl Kleinpaste @ Bell Labs, Columbus 614/860-5107 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!cbrma!kk
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (06/13/84)
> I have heard this complaint many, many, many times. "All Christians (at > least all those who evangelize a lot, particularly in a public place) > are doing nothing more than expressing their desire to cram their own > private, personal belief system down others' throats." Well, it's an > interesting point, but I'd like to address it from another angle. > [STATISTICS FROM NET.RELIGION FOLLOW] > (My! We are a *verbose* bunch!) All statistics are current as of 12 Jun > 1984 at around 10am. Osu-dbs uses standard 2-week expiration of articles. : : > So much for the "Christians flame their beliefs down others' throats" argu- > ment; non-Christians do it just as much. Rather than spout witticisms about misuse of statistics (such as we've seen here), let me say how remarkable it is that Karl has used quantity as a yard- stick rather than content. Even a cursory examination of the contents of most articles would show that a very large number of articles (including my own AND those of many Christians) make use of significant amounts of *inserted* *text* from other people's articles. Thus making statements about length of articles from any group or person is totally irrelevant. (The fact that quoting from many articles of the religionist point of view has actually aided enormously in making my case stronger is actually a good example of why this is so.) More importantly, taking a good look at content will lend support to Dick Dunn's claim. Non-religionist articles either ask for answers to questions about holes in the thinking of those who believe in a religion (these are often called "attacks") or serve to counter tirades and/or blatant proselytizing on the part of religionists by tearing them apart logically. (The articles, not the people who submitted them :-). Although we do get the occasional article from those like labelle or partridge (I don't think partridge's was in net.religion) that reveal someone fed up with illogic and unable to sit back and watch what they consider ridiculous sustained as the status quo (often these are just cathartic tirades themselves), we get many more clearly manipulative and proselytizing articles from religionists, such as the noise from Larry Bickford on humanism. Often we see a religionist step out into the light and make a pronouncement (people like Ken Arndt and Ray Jender), who seem to say something broad and seemingly important once and then fade back, failing to answer any of the resulting questions that arise from disbelievers. (leaving that task to Jeff and David, most of the time). I hope to review many of the points that have been addressed by responses to such articles that were left unanswered, and post them to the net for (hopefully) answers from the religionist camp. This is not to say that non-religionists don't say things to promote their point of view (e.g., the publishing of the Humanist Manifesto, which actually evolved from people like Larry asking for what positive tenets humanism had in relation to its deriding of religious tenets). But, again, a look at content and method shows non-religionists using logic to break down religious belief into its component fallacious parts, and religionists either consulting the bible or condemning us all to eternal damnation (or both). Some have been more so than others; in fact some others are actually discussing what we have in common rather than where we differ, and finding out a few things in the process. -- This unit humbly and deeply apologizes for having and expressing opinions. This will not occur again. (BEEP) Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
alan@allegra.UUCP (Alan S. Driscoll) (06/13/84)
"Statistics are used by politicians much the way drunks use lampposts: for support, not illumination." -- Alan S. Driscoll AT&T Bell Laboratories
ab3@stat-l (Rsk the Wombat) (06/14/84)
Sorry, Karl, but I don't buy your argument that "The statistics
reflected by current articles in net.religion on my machine reflect the
proselytizing tendencies of Christians and non-Christians". (Note: my
condensation, not Karl's.)
Happily, most Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other regligious folks seem
to be able to get through most of life without trying to deliver "The Word"
(whatever that is for each sect) to everyone else around them.
It's the ones who volunteer endless streams of ideology, theosophy,
and so forth to anyone in shouting range that irk those of us who would rather
be left alone; perhaps these few extremely annoying people are the reason we
sometimes over-react when the topic comes up.
--
Rsk the Wombat
UUCP: { allegra, decvax, ihnp4, harpo, teklabs, ucbvax } !pur-ee!rsk
{ allegra, cornell, decvax, hplabs, ihnp4, ucbvax} !purdue!rskrcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (06/19/84)
>>[commenting on Larry Bickford] >>... >>holy mission to ram his beliefs down your (our) throats. >---------- >I have heard this complaint many, many, many times. "All Christians (at >least all those who evangelize a lot, particularly in a public place) >are doing nothing more than expressing their desire to cram their own >private, personal belief system down others' throats."... From here, Kleinpastes article goes on at considerable length to count articles, total lines, etc. and divide them between Christian and non-Christian. Then he concludes, on the basis of his counting ONLY that either side seems to be forcing beliefs as much as the other. Gee, I can see how to spend a lot less time going through net.religion. I don't have to read the articles any more; I'll just count them! What sort of foolishness is this? I was talking (>> above) about ONE PARTICULAR PERSON and his habit of frequently posting moderately abusive items. I cited a specific case to illustrate my point. Length of postings or number of postings has no necessary effect on the type of views expressed in them. Isn't that obvious? I guess not. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Cerebus for dictator!