[WikiEN-l] Bible websites

[stevertigo]

Note: Yeah, this one's got snippy comments about irreligion and
unscience in it. Skip it at your discretion, and don't complain about
the magnetized aluminum grains it uses up on your free email host.

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 1:37 AM, Ray Saintonge<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> "Qualified" is you word, not mine.
Fine. More "(perhaps) in a better position to deal with certain [things]," then.

> Your eccentric distinction between atheists is seriously unhelpful.
I don't suppose "seriously unhelpful" comment would be the same kind
of criticism a Muslim might make of a Westerner who illuminated some
basic distinctions between Sunnis and Shia?  I understand the basic
sectarian and 'united front' concepts, actually.

> It is one thing to believe that there is no god (atheist), and quite another for that person to treat it as a
> "devotion" to a cause.
It has been my experience that atheist can be quite irate people -
Dawkin's book for example is just an sophomoric screed. I've also been
personally attacked by atheists:  crude, vaudeville, and eccentric,
are some examples.

> That atheist just reports what he sees.
No, the *scientist just reports what he sees. The *atheist assumes
that only what he can see actually exists.

> Maybe he'll supply a few pin-heads to alleviate the crowded condition of angels, and to allow
> their vaudeville to entertain a larger population.
Huh?

> It's his absence of faith that protects him from such commitments.
Well, note that yesterday you called atheism both a faith and a
belief. I'm glad you now cleared that up.

> Rejecting dogma is only one aspect of the objectivity.
Being objective is wonderful.

> Decrees about condoms derive from the temporal power of the Church.
Hm. This expresses more of a "fight the power" sentiment than anything
else doesn't it?

> Jesus never wore them.
Actually he found them constricting.

> The Jesuits have often been at odds with the church's dogmatism.
Well, they redeem us.

> Nevertheless, neither panders his disbelief to be endearing.
This is actually not true. For example, I once had a discussion with
an online atheist wherein I threw in some jokes. The atheist did not
get them.

> It's true enough that disbelief goes well beyond rejecting dogma; it rejects the
> foundations for the dogma that god exists.
The funny thing here is that you illuminate the very concept of the
existence of God as a "dogma" - thus eccentrically exceeding the
bounds of agnosticism and transcending the actual meaning of the word
"dogma." Scientists in fact have "dogmas" as well, though these aren't
usually called such. The notion that "life" is an entirely
materialistic concept, is one example.

And you've expressed the atheist dogma quite nicely: claiming that a
merely quantitative discipline can and should be used to make
qualitative distinctions about God and whatnot. This excess would be
just as bad as the inquisition against Galileo, if it were not dressed
in the same modernistic veneer that helped disguise eugenics for what
it really was, and was expressed with currency.

Anyway, it is a bit unscientific for a discipline with no substantive
transmaterialistic concept of how God *could exist, would then state
that natural human ignorance alone substantiates His inexistence.

> Those who follow scientific method are more likely to say that there is no such thing as scientific fact.
And yet people feel free to base qualitative worldviews based on
merely quantitative observations.

> I am more willing to find "non-divine" acceptable.
Me too, actually. Saying there are serious untruths in the Bible
doesn't really impinge on the truly divine aspects, but it's still a
difficult subject to deal with.  No Golden Tablets from the sky for us
humans.

> "[my thesis that non-believers = non-believer interpretations is] also very close to an understanding of NPOV."
Actually it's not. NPOV doesn't deal with a person's interpretations
at all - merely the artifacts of one's work in explaining things.

-Stevertigo

PS: I would have just kept this short, but I deal with things as they come in.