To: Rick Julian who wrote (25684 ) 10/28/1998 6:28:00 PM From: E Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Rick, I think you missed the irony in the Pascal quote.teeth " in it, the point evidently being that without greater specificity of rules and an imaginary disciplinarian standing in the wings to enforce them, you felt this precept would be less effectual than the ones you prefer.or any definition might or might not be an interesting exercise, but in any case it would be a change of subject from "Does God Exist Or Is That a Silly Notion Invented Because It Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time?"coma ; and not one of those choices of mine, however explicitly I were to explicate it here for you, would have the teeny tiniest itty bitty little thing to do with the truth status of the words "A God Entity Exists Out There."used to being told by those who believe there is a God, and that He most assuredly favors their own sect, that atheists are, somehow, spiritually and morally lacking (and will most likely burn in a simply agonizing hell forever!); so a statement by a religious person about atheists doing evil in any manner at all would lack the ironical flavor of Pascal's bitter observation and would fall on quite jaded ears-- we've heard it all before from those who think religiosity equates to virtue and decency! in my case, starting in my early childhood while the sons and daughters of the Christian families in the neighborhood were punching my lights out. (And don't even think about the childhood little "Joey the Jew, Joey the Jew" was treated to.)My position is that there is no causal connection whatever between self-proclaimed "spirituality" and human decency. None. Zero. Zilch. And since what I value is human decency, I look askance, or at least with ennui, at spiritual flag waving. Message 6141813 and spiritual The rest would be the selected him to dialogue with you about his spirituality. I have nothing to say about mine or anyone else's, because what one declares about that subject has nothing whatever to do with whether one is a fine human being or a vile one.
