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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (3911)	12/4/2000 12:25:17 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

I have to wonder what motivates believers of any kind to come to this thread. There are several possibilities in my mind: 1. They have doubt and are seeking information 2. They are threatened and are executing a preemptive attack 3. They are genuinely concerned for our souls and are seeking to convert these "hard cases" All of these are acceptable motivations, IMO. I don't mind if someone wants to convert me, but they will have to realize that it will only be through dialog (and not vague unprovable threats of everlasting damnation). I don't convince easily and as yet, no believer has ever presented anything that even comes close to convincing me my philosophical orientation makes LESS sense than theirs. I consider this like cable access TV. It isn't my job to ensure that believers values are evenly represented here by me. That is the job of the believer. My place here is to find the truths that appeal to me, share my understanding of the universe with others (as it exists today) and try to improve my model. There seems to be some confusion by the believers that if I don't believe what they believe then I must believe something else as strongly as they believe their dogma. Their incorrect assumption is that it is simply a matter of transferring this strong belief to the correct strong belief. Steve, I think you are right. Most people believe what they believe and it is pointless to change their minds. But then, I doubt those people would waste their time to come to this thread. I think it is important to exercise "correct thinking" (meaning: logical) when espousing ideas. The problem, as I see it, is that many who come to this thread are reacting to the title, not reading the charter and don't spend any time lurking. So what we have is a community of people that share ideas using general rules of logic (some which are quite different) but doing so in a way that recognizes that we are unified in intellect. Emotion is a poor way to make a point here and generally people that come in with a large emotional component (like the love and devotion to a particular dogma) are not going to be well-received here. I'm not sure I could generate a persona that would be hated here yet still be entirely consistent with my philosophy. Part of my dogma is that you don't cram your personal dogma down the throats of others. This is kind of a first principle thing.