david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris) (12/13/83)
I would like to conduct a short experiment which, I think, will prove of some value to all those using this newsgroup. Please respond to the following questions: >> "If I proved that Christ was the Son of God, would you consider Him?" << >> "If I proved the Bible to be a reliable document, would you believe it?" << Now, STOP! Try very hard to objectively step back and examine the thoughts in your head. What are you thinking? Are you agreeable? *IF* someone could actually prove it, would you readily accept it? Or does the statement invoke a violent negative reaction? POSITIVE: If you are agreeable to the statements, then we need more of your type on the net. You are probably willing to rationally discuss any type of religion on its own merits, and make a decision based on clear thinking. NEGATIVE: If, however, your response was an emotional, violent, NO!, perhaps you had better re-examine the reasons for your hatred against Christianity. If, after all, you cannot be moved by logical arguments, then what is your own "faith" based upon? I used Christianity in my test questions as it is the religion that seems to invoke the most passion in netland (and elsewhere, I've found). I think about any controversial subject could be used. The point remains the same; are you willing to hear out a rational argument. In the morality debate (which seems to have fizzled out due to lack of interest), I recieved some "hate mail", in which the authors, I think, fell into the second catagory. They seemed to present the "immovable object" approach in that they weren't *really* interested in what I had to say, but only to tell me that I was "obviously" wrong. If, for any of the "hate mail" authors, I am mistaken, I apologise.. I am not asking for responses to the questions, but only wanted to present them so others reading the net might obtain a better understanding of themselves and their beliefs. The responses to this article, I suspect, will fall into several catagories: 1) The (my) truth is like this, stupid, but you'll never accept it 2) You are an idiot to believe that anything religious can be proven 3) No one ever has (or ever will) prove it to me 4) !#$%^&* (no real statement, just likes to hear himself speak) 5) Prove it 6) Attaboy, Dave Now, I fully expect to recieve a number of #1's, #2's, and #3's. I will probably get one (maybe two) #4's, a couple of #5's, and no #6's. I am interested in #5 answers. -- For your consideration -- Dave Norris -- ..!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (12/14/83)
First, a bit of fun... I would like to conduct another experiment which, I think, will prove of equivalent usefulness to ssc-vax!david's previous article. Please respond to the following questions: >> "If I proved that Ubizmo was the Megalithic Holy Supreme Glop, would you consider Him?" << >> "If I proved the Book of Ubizmo to be a reliable document, would you believe it?" << Try very hard to objectively step back and examine the thoughts in your head. *IF* someone could actually prove it, would you readily accept it? Or does the statement invoke a violent negative reaction of the genus "I already know that Jesus is the Son of God and/or other proven truths so take your blasphemous horsehockey elsewhere"? POSITIVE: If you are agreeable to the statements, then we need more of your type on the net. You are probably willing to agree to go along with any type of religious thinking, without cluttering your mind with facts and evidence. NEGATIVE: If, however, your response was an emotional, violent, NO!, you will spend the rest of your eternal life in Kargomungo, the resting place (according to the Book of Ubizmo) for heathens, homosexuals, haranguers, and harmonica players. Now to dispense with david's mode of argument, and on to answering the questions he puts forth. I will not argue about the "proveability" of religious doctrines. They probably are unproveable, but so what? I don't think that most of what all of us believe in (not just religion-wise) is *totally* proveable. Usually, though, we have reasons for believing the things we believe in based on evidence. No matter. Through a leap of logic on david's part, he seems to think that because (in his hypothetical argument) he has proven that Jesus is the Son of God, and that the Bible is God's word and a reliable document, he (and apparently I) should now accept God/Jesus/Ubizmo as the guiding force/controller/master/dictator in his (and my and your) life. I fail to see the reason for this. Apparently, david feels that such a leap should be automatic and obvious. This is where the so-called humanist camp and the so-called religionist (autocratic religionist) camp differ. From my viewpoint, I have no reason to believe in a god or any non-physicalist entity ("mind","soul","essence","life-force") since I see no evidence for things beyond the physical. There are unexplained things, but I don't automatically jump and say "therefore there must be something outside of our physical universe" because this is so. If david should succeed in proving the existence of a god and/or that it/he/she wrote the Bible and had a son and gave out cigars, why should I be affected? Why should it change my life? Yes, solid proof would alter my perceptions of the physical world, but why should I change the way I behave? Now if you proved that gravity did not exist, or perhaps that life was just an illusion and relality was a virtual chocolate truffle, that might change how I live, but just proving that there's a god? Sure, if you PROVED it I'd believe it, but so what? Sorry that I didn't fit neatly into one of your categories. -- Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
Gandalf@hogpd.UUCP (12/15/83)
In response to two questions by Dave Norris: I reacted negatively because of what I consider POOR WORDING OF A QUESTION, NOT because of my "hatered against Christianity"! Towith: "If I proved that Christ was the Son of God, would you consider Him?" Consider him for what? My volleyball team?! Seriously, Webster: Consider- 1. to think about with care or caution... Sure I would "consider" him. I also consider my friends, a math puzzle, economic issues, etc. I'm not attacking the wording here as much as I'm attacking the vile accusations you are making about me and anyone else who reacted negatively. Remember, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." :-) I readily agree that all too many people are not willing to examine an emotional issue in a rational manner. However, a two question psychoanalysis isn't sufficient to start making accusations. Sorry for the smoldering embers, but I don't like having my character attacked. Monty "Some of my best friends are Christians" Estis hogpd!gandalf
ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (12/15/83)
David Norris asks about reactions to the questions: >> "If I proved that Christ was the Son of God, would you consider Him?" << >> "If I proved the Bible to be a reliable document, would you believe it?" << The first question is confusing (consider Him what?), but both questions seem to call for my reaction to a proof of the existence of God. My reaction would be negative. Take the example of a programmer who starts out life on a batch system. He wants his programs to be easy to use, so he has all his programs print out their input data. Then time sharing systems come along and his methods of designing user interfaces is obsolete. So he writes programs which are nice and terse to make the user's happy on their 110 baud terminal. Then terminals become faster and discovers that users no longer like programs whose only response to errors is to print a question mark. These sorts of changes make computer science exciting, but if they come too fast can be frustrating because they make it difficult to build a useful body of knowledge. Returning to the question at hand, a proof of the existence of God would cause an unpleasantly large change in my view of the world, because I have a large body of ideas which assume that God does not exist and I would not like to part with that investment. This is not mean that I hate Christianity or that I cannot be moved by rational arguments. I have concluded, after giving the matter fairly careful consideration, that it is highly unlikely that God exists. Therefore I don't expect to see any convincing proof of the existence of God. If I do I will have to revise my beliefs, but not before taking a pretty careful look at the proof. Kenneth Almquist
tim@unc.UUCP (12/16/83)
David Rosen, a new contributor to net.religion, asks us the following questions in a recent article: >> "If I proved that Christ was the Son of God, would you consider Him?" << >> "If I proved the Bible to be a reliable document, would you believe it?" << I am going to assume that what he meant by the first question is "... would you accept his role as the greatest human being ever and as the savior of mankind?" (If this isn't what you meant, I apologize, but encourage you to be less ambiguous in the future.) The answer is no. The reason is that Yahweh is a barbaric, hideous monster if the Judaic portion of the Bible is accurate, and that Christ is just as bad if the Christian portion is accurate. I discussed these points at length in two articles this summer; if there is any interest, I will post them again. The initial article was entitled "Even If I DID Believe...", explaining my moral objections to Judaism and Christianity. John Rutis then responded with an article claiming that my assertions about the Bible were false. I responded to this with a 700+ line article documenting all my contested assertions. So far, John has not seen fit to reply, despite the fact that he did get the article. If I repost, I will probably take my two articles, split them into four parts, and redistribute them on this group. (I'd do John's, but there would be massive redundancy, since my response quotes all his accusations.) If you would like to see this, send me mail. If the subject interests you, I suggest reading Mark Twain's "Letters From The Earth" and Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian", both of which can be gotten at any good bookstore or library. The second question is silly, since the entire Bible cannot be proven true. For example, how could you prove that Moses used this word instead of that when he ordered the slaughter of the Midianite children? Ancient tape recordings? However, if a subset can be proven true, I will certainly believe in that subset. That does not mean I will become a Jew or Christian, as I've explained above. David attempts to pre-categorize the reponses to his question, as follows: 1) The (my) truth is like this, stupid, but you'll never accept it 2) You are an idiot to believe that anything religious can be proven 3) No one ever has (or ever will) prove it to me 4) !#$%^&* (no real statement, just likes to hear himself speak) 5) Prove it 6) Attaboy, Dave I have a hard time finding much correlation between this response and any of those answers, although I do have some sympathy for the second. -- Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)
tim@unc.UUCP (12/16/83)
Sorry, I should have said "David Norris" instead of "David Rosen" in my last article. My memory occasionally performs phonetic anagrams. -- Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)
tischler@ihuxv.UUCP (12/17/83)
Ok, Dave, I'll oblige you by falling into category 5. Go ahead and prove it and give me a good laugh. What you people fail to realize is that you are constantly condemning scientists, saying that their proofs are not actually proofs. How the heck do you expect us to give any credence to your "logical proofs?" But go ahead and try to prove it. I get a kick out of knocking proofs down. Oops, maybe I'm slipping out of category 5.
rap@oliveb.UUCP (Robert A. Pease) (12/20/83)
| > RE: > ...Yahweh is a barbaric, hideous monster if the Judaic portion of the Bible is > accurate, and that Christ is just as bad if the Christian portion is > accurate. Tim, I've got your articles on Yahweh, but I must have missed the regerences to Christ. Could you repost them (or send them to me via mail)? rap hplabs!oliveb!rap