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From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: The Annotated Humanist (part 3 of 4)
Message-ID: <1022@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Apr-84 00:15:17 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.1022
Posted: Fri Apr 20 00:15:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Apr-84 01:05:01 EST
Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA
Lines: 59

[Part 3 of 550@uofm-cv.UUCP, with my comments]

> The face of this planet is scarred with pain and sorrow. ... I see no
> evidence of a deity at work trying to ease that suffering.

Try opening your eyes. Even as Darwin wrote to Fegan, "We have never
been able to reclaim a drunkard, but through your services I do not know
that there is a drunkard left in the village." Or maybe you don't want
to know *why* there is pain and sorrow?

> We must act to stop the wars and the crimes and the brutality of this
> and future ages.

Lotsa luck. There are two ways to do it: from the inside, as God does
it, or from the outside, as your inevitable tyranny will do it.

> We have a high degree of freedom in choosing what we will do.

Read: opportunity for others to exploit us.

> If each of us really did the best we could do, it would be a very
> different and a much better world than it is.

But not even the humanists do. And as long as people are free to exploit
others, the world won't get one bit better.

> Such a splendid picture [the view from the godhead] has not been
> vouchsafed to me nor do I believe it has been granted to anyone else.

So you have a priori rejected divine revelation. You have beforehand
decided that it could never be vouchsafed to you. Hardly reasonable :-)

> Humanism is also the broadest possible perspective for us in the sense
> that any other definition of our position limits us and excludes others.

I wouldn't say that it would "limit" you - maybe expose you for what you
really are ...

> ... a hundred years ago ... Christian writers were describing [all the
> varied world religions] as stages on the way to Christianity.

What "Christian" writers have you been reading? "All the varied world
religions" are NOT "stages on the way to Christianity" - they are all
headed in the other direction. But you forced yourself to that
conclusion since you have a priori rejected divine revelation.

> We need to find way of celebrating ... without harming others as we do so.

Impossible with this planet of humans. Either that, or you've got a
*very* short-sighted definition of "harm."

> Humanism is the best perspective from which to view and to work on
> this task.

Humanism won't change man's basic nature. Until you do that, forget it.
-- 
				The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
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