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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Annotated Humanist (Bottom of the 3rd Inning)
Message-ID: <665@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-May-84 10:30:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.665
Posted: Mon May 14 10:30:30 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 15-May-84 05:41:54 EDT
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Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
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This is probably the very last reply I will ever make regarding Larry
Bickford.  It is very clear from his latest article that his beliefs are
fundamentally different from those of rational thinking people (or at least
from those of THIS rational thinking person).

> Yosi Hoshen: "We should respect, or at least tolerate, other people's
>	personal moral and/or religious beliefs."
> Full religious tolerance is impossible. And you expect me to stand idly
> by while people are being offered up as burnt offerings? Our laws state
> a certain moral/religious code, necessarily at the expense of others.

Beliefs are being sent up as burnt offerings here, not people.  I won't
repeat why, but it has to do with something called evidence.  And your
beliefs, especially those that tolerance is impossible and that moral
code exist necessarily at the expense of others, are JUST beliefs, nothing
more, despite your insistence that they are not human beliefs but words
from god.  Whether or not this is even true (as Tim would probably say,
if god said such things why even care about him?), rational people have
been trying to work out something a little more rational, a little more
benign, and a little better overall for every individual as a member of
a world society.  Your expectations for humankind are not shared by the
rest of us, thank you.

> Rich Rosen: "God hasn't been accused of denying anyone any rights.
>	Certain views on what god has said have decided a priori (again
>	without reasonable reason) that god's word (as written by human
>	beings in a book) would deny us those rights. Yes, many have
>	said 'if god is as described in xxx, he is hideous' (to which
>	religionists reply 'how can you make value judgments about
>	something I have defined as pure good?')."
> I *thought* Rich was around last summer.... Anyway, Rich's "reasonable
> reason" is pretty much *his* a priori decision on things, including the
> Bible, or whether or not a certain act is "hideous." The last sentence
> is Rich's misinterpretation based on using only *part* of xxx.

I'll say it again.  It is the belief system's that are under scrutiny, not
god.  Your belief system, though you claim without doubt that it is absolutely
true, is nothing BUT a belief system with minimal evidence.  Some of us have
no idea why you would even want to hold such beliefs, but nonetheless you do.
That's your business.  It seems you want to make it ours as well.

> RR: "Larry asks if I have all the facts? Does he? Does he have more
>	facts than you or I have? Or does he say 'I can never have all
>	the facts, so I'll make my decision based on no facts.'?"
> Maybe we should branch into a discussion of epistemology - "How do we
> know that we know?" Rationalism's circularity would prove interesting.

Rationalism's "circularity" begins with certain postulates that Larry would
probably agree to, then extends from there using scientific inquiry to
obtain knowledge.  How does that compare to:  God told me this.  No, I
don't know that it's not just me thinking {DOES HE DO THAT, IN ANY CASE? -ED.},
but I'm sure it's God talking because it works for me.  Besides it says so in
the Bible...  No, people didn't write it, it's the word of God...  Because
it says so right here...  And because God told me this...
I honestly don't think Larry has ever spoken to or heard from god.  First,
if god existed, I doubt he'd want to talk to someone with Larry's attitude.
Second, what he's hearing and repeating to us sounds like his own internal
biased view of what the world should be like, and not the word of god.
[OPINION]

> There is often a connection between actions and thoughts today and those
> several years down the road - but this is only brought up when man wants
> to escape his own guilt."

What are we guilty of?  Things *you* (oh, I'm sorry: Things *god*) has
described as crimes?  With sentence imposed by you? (I mean god)... no I don't
mean god!!  It seems that YOU would like to impose the sentence yourself,
as part of your vision of a better society.  Just let god decide itself what
it wants to do, OK?

> RR: "People do mischief precisely because human beings are not raised in
>	a rational fashion."
> Poppycock. I tried to explain before (maybe the reader isn't *capable*
> of understanding it? :-), you can't give a rational explanation to those
> incapable of understanding the reason. [OK, KID, WE'RE GOING TO LET YOU
> DROWN SO YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHY YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO SWIM.]

Apparently this method is Larry's idea of how rationality should be taught.
(No wonder he thinks the way he does.)  Allow me to offer an alternate
example.  My friend has a son who is now 5 years old.  When he was 2 or so,
she took him up to a large parked truck, showed him the tires and said "See,
if you walk out on the street by yourself and a truck like this comes along,
the weight of this truck and these big tires will crush you completely."  He
has never walked out into the street by himself.  He KNOWS not to, and he
KNOWS the reason why.  Perhaps if more people (including Larry) had been
brought up this way, they wouldn't be muttering phrases like "Poppycock"
in response to rationality.

> RR: "A person's 'own guilt' is based only on a 'judgment' by your
>	internal court."
> Ooh, first class humanism. No absolute standards. Just convince yourself
> that killing the guy is OK, and there's nooooo problem.

Ooh, fourth rate irrationality!!  There ARE no absolute standards.  All these
things, like good and evil, are evolved precepts from human minds.  Why did
they evolve?  As a means of better organizing society.  Thus, as humanity's
rationality increases over time (irrationality has also increased, but I
won't point out any examples...), we evolve better and more humane ways of
organizing society for everyone's benefit without the need to say "these
are absolute standards.  God created them!"  [I think Larry misunderstood
my statement.  I was not saying that the above statement attributed to me
is true, I was trying to point out that Larry's notion of a person's
"own guilt" is based solely on his idea of how they should be judged.]

> RR: "(Maybe Larry assumes that we all see him in the mirror.)"
> Strip off the outward appearance and man is pretty much the same.

Sorry, Larry, you'll never understand what I'm about to say, but all human
beings in this world are as different as they are the same.

> RR: Finally, about your need to proclaim danger, remember that it is
>	illegal to yell 'theatre' in a crowded fire."
> Misapplication - that's a restriction on free speech, not genuine warning.
> Besides, where's the crowd?

Right her in this newsgroup, and all over the country where your Moral
Majority (whom you have publicly supported here) and others of their ilk
are spreading the word of irrationality.

> The main problem with both the posted article and HMs I and II is that
> they are only half. It is only when one pauses to study them and see
> what their fulness is that one realizes what is really going on. But
> because of the high-sounding language and the lofty position they place
> man in, few push on. But those that do, find things others want hidden.

...and what of the lofty position you place a (possibly non-existent) god
in?  Larry will continue to speak in platitudes about what is wrong with
humanism, and he will misquote people to ensure that it is made to look
bad, but I feel sure that he will fail to produce anything of substance.

> I am not opposed to "freedom, justice, and peace." But the humanist
> version of each of them isn't. Freedom is the desire and ability to do
> what you should; the humanist version is pure license.

It sounds like Larry is trying to say "freedom is the desire and ability
and ability to do what you should", where his belief system defines the
"shoulds" and "shouldn'ts".  Doesn't sound very much like freedom to me...
It is "license" to act contrary to Larry's Laws, whether or not there is
a rational reason behind Larry's Laws (like "Don't do that because it
hurts another human being")

> Humanist justice
> keeps the criminals on the streets and people behind barred windows.

...a perfect example of the twisting, misquoting, and vacuous verbiage
I just described.  WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???

> Humanistic peace is accomplished through total domination (their
> "universal society"; let's hear it for local control).

To Larry, a world without petty local groups deciding for their local
people what their lives should be like (as opposed to letting everyone
decide for themselves---I can hear Larry saying "Poppycock" right now!)
would be a hideous place to live.  So far I've heard Larry come out for
obliterating communism & humanism, regionalistic and nationalistic
groupings of human beings (THE root cause of 90% of the violence in the
world) and totalitarianism.  Is there a Christian out there who'd like
to speak out?  As tempting as it might be to promote my cause, I refuse
to believe that Larry's belief system has anything to do with real
Christianity.
-- 
"I'm not dead yet!"
"Oh, don't be such a baby!"	Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr