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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich
From: eich@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: religion in general - (nf)
Message-ID: <4195@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Nov-83 04:28:42 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4195
Posted: Tue Nov 29 04:28:42 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Nov-83 03:40:28 EST
Lines: 32

#R:hou2a:-18000:uiuccsb:11900017:000:1453
uiuccsb!eich    Nov 29 03:40:00 1983

/***** uiuccsb:net.religion / hou2a!murphy /  6:31 pm  Nov 21, 1983 */
         				... As for those who are not
         secure in their beliefs, there is something to be said for an
         honest, critical, unemotional (as far as possible) approach to
         such questions as "why do I believe in thus-and-such?".
/* ---------- */

Yes, there is something to be said for such an approach to such
questions.  Too bad your original note didn't ask that question
seriously or directly, and didn't evince an honest, critical,
unemotional approach, but rather a self-aggrandizing, intellectually
dishonest (I refer to weasel-words like `always'), uncritical (your
comments could be directed against secular ideologies and philosophies
as easily, and they would still be empty fatuities) approach.  

For there to be reasoned debate in net.religion (in net.anything,
really), there has to be a presumption in favor of ecumenicism: that
common ground, however narrow, exists, and that we can find it.
Anything else belongs in net.flame.  Why are net.politics and
net.religion (and net.*) intellectual ghettoes where, too often,
frustrated children rant and whine, and pridefully moralize?  The a
priori value of minimal tolerance has been debased.

I really doubt that your original note was conceived of as a starting
point in a dialogic search for common ground.  And minimal tolerance
should not, I think, tolerate that.

	Brendan Eich
	uiucdcs!eich