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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (9207)	3/20/2001 4:18:03 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

That is very good. It reminds me of Why I Am Not a Christian- by Russell. Have you read that? You would like it.

To: Solon who wrote (9207)	3/20/2001 7:19:00 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

That reminds me of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" I have no idea why because I can't remember how it went. I only see one problem with the future, our world is going to be governed either by cosmicforce types or Greg McRitchie and I don't think either is capable or wise or kind. (no offence to cosmicforce intended - I mean the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx types as contained in the following lyrics by the Canadian rock band Rush which album was dedicated to Ayn Rand) oceanrush.com

To: Solon who wrote (9207)	3/21/2001 6:13:21 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Solon, my thanks for that... quite superb to read. And although I could never write with such elegance, like you I find both my own questions and doubts, and from them the same answers - and, delightfully, precisely the same chain of logic on the sources of religion. This rebuttal I love... I couldn't express the logic gap here before: You know the watch argument was Paley's greatest effort. A man finds a watch and it is so wonderful that he concludes that it must have had a maker. He finds the maker and he is so much more wonderful than the watch that he says he must have had a maker. Then he finds God, the maker of the man, and he is so much more wonderful than the man that he could not have had a maker. This is what the lawyers call a departure in pleading. According to Paley there can be no design without a designer -- but there can be a designer without a design. The wonder of the watch suggested the watchmaker, and the wonder of the watchmaker, suggested the creator, and the wonder of the creator demonstrated that he was not created -- but was uncaused and eternal. Wonder what he'd say now, with bio-engineering,and computer algorithms which simulate life and growth without control... I suppose the only universal is reason, then... I do not know -- but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme -- that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken -- that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer -- no power that worship can persuade or change -- no power that cares for man. ... Man must protect himself. He cannot depend upon the supernatural -- upon an imaginary father in the skies. There endeth the lesson...