To: Greg or e who wrote (17547 ) 5/28/2004 4:58:17 AM From: Solon Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 28931 "You don't want to deal with substance so you will intentionally twist what I said out of context. " I have not taken anything you said out of context. Your vacant assertion without even an attempt at demonstration exposes the frailty of your position."Guess what? That means you have lost the discussion " No...hardly! If you could have responded in a rational way to any of my points, I am sure you would have at least tried!"How the Atheist moves from what is to what ought to be is the question you have to avoid because you don't have an answer " I explained repeatedly that "ought" relates TO HUMAN VALUE. It is axiomatic that life is the primary value. All of us seek to preserve life and to be happy living it. People such as yourself attempt to preserve it for eternity, even though it exposes your irrationality. Your assertion that one needs to be a Christian to have ethics is too too stupid. Mature people do not need to justify ethical treatment of one another by the imagined rewards and punishments from some pompous and cruel entity. Those are the ethics of a mental midget and an emotional chicken.Message 20173055 _____________________________________ You remind me so much of Martin Luther in your hatred of rationality! Here are a few of his quotes which remind me of you! The difference is that he was a leader while you are a follower! You both treat reason with contempt; you both hate it with a passion!""People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon....This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13]that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." [Martin Luther in one of his "Table Talks" in 1539] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People give ear to an upstart astrologer [Copernicus]who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy." [Martin Luther, Works, Volume 22, c. 1543] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Their synagogues ... should be set on fire." "Their homes should be broken down and destroyed. They ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like Gypsies, in order that they may realize that they ... are ... but miserable captives." "They should be deprived of their prayerbooks and Talmuds." "Their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more." [Martin Luther] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Die verfluchte Huhre, Vernunft." (The damned whore, Reason). [Martin Luther] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What shall we Christians do now with this depraved and damned people of the Jews? ... I will give my faithful advice: First, that one should set fire to their synagogues. . . . Then that one should also break down and destroy their houses. . . . That one should drive them out the country." [Martin Luther] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." [Martin Luther] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Reason should be destroyed in all Christians." [Martin Luther] "Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason." [Martin Luther] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets." [Martin Luther, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason...Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed." [Martin Luther, quoted by Walter Kaufmann, _The Faith of a Heretic_, (Garden city, NY, doubleday, 1963), p. 75] "The word and works of God is quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes." [Martin Luther, Works 12.94] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------"I myself saw and touched at Dessay, a child of this sort, which had no human parents, but had proceeded from the Devil. He was twelve years old, and, in outward form, exactly resembled ordinary children."" Now this mentally disturbed individual is the spiritual progenitor of thousands of Christian sects including yours! It is no wonder that my discussion with you leaves me despairing of the future for humanity.