pmd@cbscd5.UUCP (07/12/83)
There have been many responses to my article "The Bible and the
Constitution". Some of them were lengthy and most were resonably
presented. I do intend to respond to them, but it's going to
take time since some of the best responses contained a lot of
good points. I don't want to give a hasty response. I do, however
have a few things to say now:
I want to apologize to Pamela Troy and to her father (and to anyone
else, for that matter) for the offence I have committed against those
who hold atheistic beliefs. I admit that my article was crudely
insensitive to good individuals who are atheists. I will try to
be more careful in future discussion. Pamela did indicate a desire
for answers to her questions and I appreciate that. I promise I
will do the best I can.
I would also like to respond to the following from Tim Maroney's response
to my article:
[From Paul] Is this any way to discredit my
argument? What did you find in what I said that was
actually false? ... I am willing to give credit to
anyone who espouses the truth regardless of their
religious or political beliefs. It's not good
reasoning to discredit the source or propounders of
and [sic] argument without considering the argument
itself.
I would agree with Paul in this case. However, Paul himself would
not. Since when do fundamentalist Christians (like Paul) believe that
the value of an argument is independent of its source? They believe
it when it is convenient, but when you start to criticize Biblical
assertions, they invariably fall back on "Believe it because it's in
the Bible." For Paul to make these statements is simple hypocrisy.
Here Tim seems to be saying that I would not agree with something
he has quoted me as saying. I don't understand. I don't recall ever
falling back on the assertion "Believe it because it's in the Bible".
First you put me in the category of "fundamentalist" (which I do not
consider myself to be) and then infer that I was lying in the above
quote because "fundamentalists" wouldn't really say what I did (or
maybe wouldn't mean it if I did. I use biblical reasoning when talking
to those who accept the truth of Scripture. To those that don't my
arguments come from a biblical perspective, but I do not fall back on
the assertion Tim accuses me of. If I have done so, please point it out
to me. Tim, do you remember the article (posted about 2 months ago in
net.religion) entitled "Response to Tim Maroney"; where all the author
did was quote Scripture at you with the intent to call you a fool and
such? Did you read my response to that article? I'm sure you didn't
or you forgot it. Otherwise you wouldn't accuse me of doing the same
sort of thing.
Although I don't think you care about my response to the remainder
of your article, I'll try to respond to it also.
If anyone else is interested in my response to these articles let
me know. Since my response is bound to be lenthy I won't post
it to the net unless there is a lot of interest. Also I tried
to respond to all the letters I recieved about my original article
If my mail didn't get through and you really want a response,
let me know.
Also, the responses I recieved raised two questions in my mind
that I would like to have answers to. I will help me to respond
more inteligently to discussion along these lines.
1) Is atheism to be considered a religion or not? Some atheists
wrote to me asserting that atheism is a religion. Others referred
to my beliefs as "religious", indicating theirs were not. If
atheism is not a religion, why not? If it is, why is it? Also
if atheism is a religion, I would like an example of the beliefs
of a person who is deemed to be "not religious". (If there are
any that would say agnosticism is not religious they should state their
definition of religion).
2) Are the writings of Karl Marx definitive of atheism? Are
we to say that Marxism == Atheism. Christianity finds it's
definition in the teachings of the Bible. Are Marx's writings
to be considered the Atheist's Bible? If so, which ones, specifically.
Please excuse the bad spelling and grammar this time. Thanks.
Paul Dubuc ....cbosgd!cbscd5!pmd