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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Humanism and the myth of Neutrality
Message-ID: <790@pucc-h>
Date: Fri, 22-Jun-84 13:35:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.790
Posted: Fri Jun 22 13:35:43 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Jun-84 08:41:39 EDT
References: <730@pyuxn.UUCP> <762@pucc-h>, <737@pyuxn.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 134

>> = Sargent
>  = Rosen

>> Are you assuming that fear and blind faith are the only reasons to follow
>> any religious dogma?  (Never ASSUME....)

> I'm not assuming.  I've already asked for factual evidence for your system
> of beliefs.  The only reasons left for believing in such a system are fear
> and blind faith without reason, in the absence of such evidence.

You are assuming that only physical evidence is admissible.  "Rationalists do
not deny miracles, God, and the supernatural because there is no evidence for
them.  They deny them because they have limited themselves to an approach
which shuts out the possibility of such evidence." -- from "What Else?", by
Doug Dickey.  I find it difficult not to resent being accused of believing
because of fear and blind faith.  My faith is not blind; I trust God because
it has been my experience that "God works all things together for good for
those who love Him"; while certainly I often don't see where a particular
situation will end up when I entrust it to Him, I have seen other situations
work out for the best (better than I could have imagined) when I entrusted
them to Him; since He worked before, I believe He'll work again.

Let us not get into another fruitless, hypothetical discussion as to
whether other religious-type beliefs would have had the same effect; i.e.
"What about some imaginary Hindu or Moslem?" questions are just that --
imaginary.  Let's stick to real case histories.

>> It might be mentioned that a major effect of Christ in lives is indeed to
>> free people to do what's right -- but to make them the opposite of
>> zombies.  It is when people are still "slaves to sin" that they are, to
>> some extent, zombies -- i.e. committing actions not by choice, but by
>> compulsion.

> I agree completely with Jeff that being what he calls a "slave to sin" (what
> I would call a slave to physical biochemical compulsions) is roughly
> equivalent to being a zombie.

Rich...aren't you calling yourself a zombie?  You have expressed your belief
that there isn't anything but the physical.  By your own argument, you are
a slave to physical biochemical compulsions.  Even your control over some of
these compulsions is yet another such compulsion, according to you; and so is
your disbelief in God.	If everything you say arises purely from biochemistry,
only your own biochemistry makes you think it's valid.

> I think we've already been through the arguments about
> "freedom to do what's right", and the fallacy behind that line of thought.

I'm not talking about political freedom here!  I'm talking about personal
freedom -- being freed from that which inhibits us from doing that which
is best for us and/or those around us.

> A bad reason to get precepts out of books of wisdom is precisely because
> these people may have thought up some rational things (occasionally), but
> they failed to explain the reasoning behind their thinking, and as I've
> already mentioned, if there's no clear cut reason why a law exists, it's
> worthless.

I don't know the answer to the following question, but did ALL ancient
writers of books of wisdom fail to give reasons for what they suggested?
When I said "books of wisdom" rather than just "the Bible", I was intending
to include those of other philosophers, e.g. the ancient Greeks.  Check
yourself.  Do you make a point of opposing only the Bible (under the guise
of "rationalism"), or do you deny all past wisdom?

It appears to me that you're a lot like me in one way:  You want to be
perfectly safe.  You don't want to bet your life on anything unless you KNOW
it's a safe bet.  Unfortunately, life, if it is truly lived, consists of
repeatedly betting one's life (in large ways and small).  Judging by some of
the lines which have appeared in your .signature files (particularly "Pardon
me for breathing"), I wonder whether you really like or want to be alive
at all.

> It makes more sense to formulate rules for a society of imperfect people by
> using rationality rather than wisdom.  Rationality means that you design
> laws and give reasons for their existence....  Wisdom is just a bunch of
> words in a book that YOU happen to agree with (like the empty words of Lewis
> or McDowell).  One person's wisdom is another person's jokebook.

We have different definitions of wisdom.  My working definition is something
like "a knowledge of how people are inside and how they function, and what
happens/how they feel when they do certain things, and how to act so as to
optimize life."  Wisdom is a quality of character possessed by living people
as well as ancient writers, particularly by older people who have had time to
observe a lot of life.	I think the reason that the reasons for, e.g., the
BIblical morality were omitted because the effects (or possible effects) of
doing otherwise would be obvious.  (Consider the state of the Roman Empire
during the first century A.D., when the New Testament was being written;
Seneca, I think, wrote "Innocence was not rare in the Roman Empire; it was
nonexistent."  Much like today.)

BTW, I would hesitate to consider the words of a man of Lewis's intelligence
"empty".

> Just because there are some things in the book [the Bible] that make sense
> doesn't mean that the whole book should be used a pattern for living, nor
> does it mean that the book is divinely authored.

This reminds me of something Rich wrote to me in a private letter
(approximate quote from memory):  "A morality based de facto on a book is
a bankrupt concept."  The key words here are "de facto".  I agree with this
statement!  If you're doing nothing but following the book, you're missing
out on the real life and freedom (again, not political, but personal) of
Christ, as Paul wrote to the Galatians.  The Bible is a good set of
guidelines, but it does little good without the living presence of Christ.

> So much for C.S. Lewis' need to see such things as external to humanity.

Twice in his article, Rich, in his hypothetical rational societies, used the
example that murder is irrational.  But Lewis's argument did not deal on such
a high level.  His point was that there is an idea of fair play, a push to do
the good thing even if you have to risk yourself to do it, a standard for
daily behavior which we recognize, but to which none of us fully conforms.
Two of his examples were: 1) When people quarrel, often one sees that one
party has done something not nice and the second party is taking the first
to task because of the first's unfairness or whatever -- appealing to a
standard of fairness or good behavior; and the first party accepts the
standard and tries to excuse his behavior as not really being a violation
of that standard.  2) If you hear a call for help from a drowning person,
you will have two impulses:  an impulse to help the person, and an impulse
to preserve your own safety.  But there will be a third thing within you,
an idea that you ought to follow the impulse to help the victim, quite
separate from that impulse itself.

Now Rich, in example #2, would probably let the person drown unless the
person meant a lot to him, because it would seem "rational" to preserve
his own safety.  (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Sorry, but Rich seems to be an excellent fulfillment of the prophecy
"Having eyes they do not see, and having ears they do not hear."

-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{allegra|decvax|harpo|ihnp4|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
"...got to find my corner of the sky."