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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (1458)	10/7/2000 12:24:41 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 28931

Well it was the thread's intro header that attracted me. So, to that end it worked. Clearly some people find the question itself objectionable and couldn't get past that. I found the fact that the "Ask God" charter was completely different than what it de facto became to be truly illustrative of the chaotic aspect of the internet. They responded to the title and not the charter. Anyone who has ever organized a public event is ultimately left with a unsettling disconnect between what one intended and what one got. That was my experience in college when I did it. Through delegation you end up with a loss of control. But it is more than that. The event itself starts to take on a life of its own. In a similar way, when you create a thread, you may not end up with what you wanted, or you may attract a different element. If you want to discuss alien intelligence, the Usenet areas where you'd think people would go to discuss it is filled with fringy, ignorant people or people that only want to debunk popular UFO culture. There is no discussion of the character of alien intelligence, if it exists.

To: Solon who wrote (1458)	10/10/2000 12:41:29 PM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 28931

Was not Secular Humanism legally declared to be a religion in the United States? "Blind faith is not an area of competence for me."Ya right. On the contrary, It seems to me that Solon is a man of great faith. This is even more pronounced when you consider that, your philosophy and your actions are going in opposite directions. You have hitched your wagon to theistic presuppositions, all the while denying that the basis for those presuppositions exists. Of course the problem with hitching a free ride is you have no control over your ultimate destination. This road goes to God. Not just any God but one who is Personal, Powerful and morally perfect. You want to beat Christians over the head with the problem of evil, but then by denying the existence of an ultimate standard which would be the only way to affirm anything as being truly evil, you end up saying that evil does not exist. Which is it? Does absolute evil exist or not? If certain things are in and of themselves evil then there must also be certain things that are in and of themselves GOOD. If ultimate moral standards exist then where do they come from? Do they exist in a vacuum? Oh I forgot we just assume them. That reminds me of the judge who when asked for a definition of what was obscene said "well I know it when I see it" The rationalists (beginning with Aristotle) assumed self evident first principles: principles that were simply understood The problem is, however, that self evident FP's always amount to subjective premises, simply by virtue of that damn word SELF. The later empiricist's also assumed self evident FP's. They, however, used experience as the intuitive foundation of knowledge. This was no better, as the first principle was different for different people--duplicating the problem of the rationalists. It is now almost universally excepted that the finite part cannot understand the infinite whole, that there can be no absolute basis for human knowledge. This does not mean that there are not absolute facts, only that we must always be cognitive that what we believe--has uncertainty as a given. I like this quote from Ingy; "this simplistic explanation doesn't communicate anything but blind faith, which is the trait of religious scriptures, not philosophy." It seems to me that you are pretty picky choosy about the things that you accept without proof. Very inconsistent if you ask me. "The content of your affirmations has been atheistic, your unacknowledged presuppositions theistic. This means that, on a fundamental level, you and I agree that He is." Have a good day Greg