Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!floyd!harpo!eagle!mh3bs!mhtsa!exodus!gamma!ulysses!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Open Letter to John Crane Message-ID: <6457@unc.UUCP> Date: Wed, 21-Dec-83 19:59:37 EST Article-I.D.: unc.6457 Posted: Wed Dec 21 19:59:37 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Dec-83 11:26:03 EST References: <4494@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 100 Good article, Liz. I'd like to respond to a few points in it. About the flavor of Tim and Gary's articles: What is this? Don't both of your religions teach love? Yes and no. Both religions teach that love is a greatly desirable and wonderful thing. Thelemism, however, does not have any teachings of the nature of "turn the other cheek". Gary attacked me viciously and without basis; I responded in kind, but with some more basis. I see nothing immoral in this. On the other hand, I do see something hypocritical in Jesus preaching that we should love our enemies, when the god of that religion does nothing of the sort. (If your concept of love includes imprisonment in lakes of fire, remind me never to go out on a date with you...) Furthermore, turning the other cheek in the late 1930's and early 1940's would have meant we'd all be goose-stepping to work every day. Christians do not practice their teachings about unconditional love, which is good from a moral point of view, but is still hypocritical. The main thrust of your article was about the role of assertions in religion. I'd like to back off a bit on my statement that "religion serves to put forth models, not assertions". In fact, even the putting forth of a model as worthwhile is an assertion. (This is what comes of trying to force essay-length concepts into a single phrase -- sorry.) In fact, what I want in a religion is as few possibly false assertions as possible, given the other duties of religion. I'm more than willing to leave history to the historians, biology to the biologists, and so on. I am unwilling to accept statements as true if there is no evidence for them and they could later cause conflicts with other verifiable facts. For instance, the belief that the creation of the physical universe happened as mandated by some religion could bring me into conflict with physical evidence. A belief that Jesus was the Son of God could bring me into conflict if it is false and some other religion's claims can be verified, which I do not know not to be the case. I have accepted Thelemism for a number of reasons; one is that it does not force me to believe many things that could be false, unlike Christianity and almost any other religion you'd care to name. As I mentioned, I left Christianity at 12 because there was just too much in it that might well be false, and which I had no way of verifying. Even an apparent direct contact with YHVH could be an illusion created by the devil; if humans are really as corrupt as Christianity holds, there is no way for us to tell. That is not my current reason for not being a Christian, but it still holds water. As to the validity of the assertions that Thelemism forces on the Thelemite, Liz has some interesting things to say, but she misses the point. Her proposed tests all assume that the assertion "Thelemism is the best religion for everyone" is part of it. No doubt there are some hard-liners who would say this, but I am not among their number. I am a Thelemite because it works for me; to put it another way, my only assertion is "Thelemism is the best religion for me". I have never proselytized -- my article on Thelemism was just so that I could answer a large number of queries all at once -- and I have never said that someone's belief was bad just because it wasn't Thelemite. (This last is meant to stand in contrast to most of the Christian postings on the group.) I might be able to prove that it works for me, but I've never given any thought to this issue. (If you're really thirsty for it, I am in love with a wonderful woman, I make enough money to live comfortably, I am not subject to uncontrollable negative emotion, and I graduated from college at 20.) There are a few little things from Liz's article I'd like to clarify as well. First, as Liz points out, I do believe that there are such things as unhealthy beliefs. However, she goes on to say: I am expanding a little in saying that a belief can be unhealthy for the believer as well. That's not an expansion -- the example I gave was meant to be of one that was unhealthy for the believer as well as those around him. I think you do have a point in saying that Tim isn't consistent in expecting greater rigor in what others believe than in what he believes, but (besides what I said above in the beginning paragraphs) I don't think there is any real consensus on this. I am not aware that I am guilty of this. If you are going to say "It is a fact that such-and-such happened", then I am perfectly within my rights in asking for some sort of evidence. Thelemism does not make assertions of that form (in any way that is important to the religion), so I am not subject to that sort of questioning. This hearkens back to the choice of a religion that does not force you to believe the possibly false. Tim, I think you're making way to much of Gary's "everyone else" phrase in concluding he is a liar. In common usage, "everyone else" means something like "most everyone else" -- he's just emphasizing or (at worst) exagerating in order to make a point. Even if you did show that he lied once, that's not quite the same as saying categorically that he is a liar. Even if he did mean "almost everyone else", this still betrays a prejudice against non-Christians. Nothing is changed in what I said by this slight change. As to calling him a liar, that means simply "one who lies", and so your last sentence is false. Overall, Liz, your peace-making efforts are, I'm sure, appreciated by all members of this news group. However, responding to attacks with attacks will probably continue to be part of my behavioral repertoire. All I can say is that my attacks will always be supported by evidence. -- Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)