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

To: Greg or e who wrote (2762)	10/26/2000 4:45:20 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Greg, slowly now. Can a devout Christian doubt his/her belief occasionally and still be a devout Christian? Maybe intermittently devout. Steve said: "Now suppose we had a belief system in which the central tenet was insistence that everything be questioned? Fanaticism would thus be impossible. The dictionary calls devout a synonym for religious which means Having or showing belief in and reverence for God or a deity. So can you have an agnostic fanatic? No. It is in the definition. Unless you twist the definition (which is the quote you supplied does) *Total agnosticism* is self defeating because it assumes some knowledge about reality in order to deny any knowledge of reality." What the heck is a "total agnostic"? Let's go back to the dictionary. One who believes that there can be no proof of the existence of God but does not deny the possibility that God exists. Okay, Greg, breathe deeply. How do you twist that into something fanatical (with or without the total modifier)? So I submit that Steve is right. A philosophy that embraces questioning and doubt can't, by definition, be fanatical. Definition fanatical: Possessed with or motivated by excessive, irrational* zeal.* QED

To: Greg or e who wrote (2762)	10/26/2000 5:16:32 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"everything must be questioned" must itself be scrutinized by the same standard. So "nothing must be questioned" is a member of the set "everything must be questioned" in your mind? Everything must be questioned including the statement "everything must be questioned." So, we must conclude, that sometimes nothing is questioned in order to be consistent with everything must be questioned. Okay. I really don't think that is what Steve was promoting. He was just saying that a philosophy that has as it's central tenet, "everything must be questioned", can't produce fanaticism. I'd agree with Steve unless Steve meant that the central tenet was included in the "everything" that should be questioned. I look to the dictionary for guidance: tenet: An opinion, doctrine, or principle held as being true by a person or especially by an organization. Nope. Sorry. That is way too convoluted. Tenet is a principle offered as true, and therefore is exempt form questioning.