Subj : Re: "Hams to the Rescue After Katrina" MSNBC News Article To : alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf,rec.radio.amateur.antenna,rec.radio.amateur.dx,rec.radio.amateur.equipment,rec.radio.amateur.policy From : Matt Osborn Date : Mon Sep 26 2005 06:14:19 From Newsgroup: alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 00:53:36 -0700, Zoran Brlecic <...WA7AA...@get.lost> wrote: >Matt Osborn wrote: > >>>>Belief requires faith in something unknown. I see no difference if one >>> >>>were to name that unknown G-d or call it by some other name. >>> >>>>Regardless of the name, we attribute 'correctness' to something we do >>>>not know. >>> >>>What has this got to do with atheism? I still don't see any faith or >>>belief in *not* believing that a magic supernatural dude created >>>everything. Not believing supernatural and paranormal concepts is a >>>default state. If you want to convince me or anyone else about your >>>extraordinary claim, you have to provide extraordinary evidence. Simply >>>saying "it is so because I say it is so" does not cut it. >> >> >> May I suggest you read the 'Golden Bough' by Frazer, for starters. The >> belief in the unknown is universal, it is a fundamental part of the >> human psyche. >> >> When you say " I still don't see any faith or belief in *not* >> believing that a magic supernatural dude created everything", you are >> merely saying that what you believe is better than what the other guy >> believes. > >Not at all, I keep saying, and you refuse to hear it, that I d-o n-o-t > b-e-l-i-e-v-e i-n y-o-u-r g-o-d-s. Any of them. Your belief in no G-d is no different than any belief in G-d. They are opposite sides of the same coin. If there is nothing to believe in then there is no need to say it. Science is a tool, not a plan. That is, science tells us how to build a house, not what house to build. We cannot exist without a plan, science and knowledge provide no plans, only tools to implement plans. For a plan, we need imagination and imagination requires the faith that we can accomplish or discover what we imagine. >Once again, absence of belief is not a belief. Let me illustrate: I'm not saying that an absence of belief in G-d is a belief in itself. What I am saying is that we do believe in something and would do so even if the concept of G-d had never arisen. If we are to make any plans whatever, we need some basis to make those plans. Without a belief that we can accomplish something we wouldn't even try. Worse, if we did try, our acts would be random in nature as we had no plan. What could that basis for making plans be? It is faith in ourselves and our future. We have to have faith or we would not survive. >suppose that someone accuses you of being a witch. He has no evidence, >other than he believes he saw you kill someone's cow with a spell. Now, >you obviously don't "believe that you're not" a witch, do you? It would >seem that his claim needs evidence/proof and you have nothing to believe >in and nothing to prove. >So now you're saying that his belief and your "belief" are somehow similar? I'm not defending any religion, I'm defending faith itself. How any individual displays or hides that faith is strictly up to the individual. I will insist, though, that all individuals believe in something that they cannot know and are therefore believers. >> What you seem to be doing is standing on soap box and claiming that >> Atheism is correct and religion is not. That Atheism has basis in >> fact where other religions are based on superstitions. >> Atheism is exactly the same in all fundamental respects as any other >> religion. Atheism, in other words doesn't exist, it cannot exist in >> any real sense. Rather than I proving that an elephant can't fly, why >> don't you prove that it can? > >Why don't you prove that your gods, devils and angels exist first, >before engaging in the standard theist shifting of the burden of proof. >If you have nothing to show for your gods other than the usual begging >the question and other logical fallacies, then I don't have to entertain >your hypothesis with any more seriousness than the hypothesis that the >Universe was farted out of the Super-Nuclear Donkey's butt yesterday >afternoon. I am not religious in the way you seem to believe. I do not believe in any of the known religions. Yet I do believe that I'm a part of something which is beyond my grasp. While I cannot know what that something is, I do know that with care and wisdom, I can carve a life worth living out of the unknown. In all of our science and knowledge, we have yet to find random things. Everything is related in some way or another. Atoms join to form molecules, molecules join to form compounds, each joins to form cells, cells join to form plants, etc. We see it in small things and we see it in large things. How did it come about? I have no idea, Am I part of it? Most certainly. >Either way, Matt, you keep spinning the old tired religious nonsense >about atheism being just another theism, because that's pretty much the >only thing they can say on the matter, other than engaging in the ad >hominem about atheists' immorality, that is. > >However, none of this would matter one bit and I would care about >Christianity as much as I care about some Amazon tribe's river gods, if >it weren't for the fact that the religious right affects my life in the >profoundly negative way, and the list is getting longer by the day: >health research, contraceptives, euthanasia, abortion, education, >politics, freedom of expression, "morality" laws, taxes, phony illegal >wars, etc. Your litany impinges upon the belief of others just as you say they impinge upon yours. You seem to think that we need not compromise to keep civilization alive. If you had your way, and in many respects you do, you would and you do affect my life negatively. We're in that same boat, you and I, as far as that goes. These are the normal struggles between ideas and beliefs. They have always existed and will always exist. Nothing above distinguishes the atheist from the religious. Each have their beliefs and opinions, each thinks their beliefs and opinions are correct. The only thing that varies is the reason for their beliefs and that reason varies even between religions. Atheists are no different than the religious, they, as do the religious themselves, simply believe in different things. >Americans have almost absolute freedom to practice their religion in >their homes and in their churches as they please, but that is never >enough for the Christian Taliban, is it? They won't be happy until this >country becomes a Christian Saudi Arabia. And you won't be happy until when? 73 KC0UKK -- msosborn at msosborn dot com .