Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: The Unanswered Question(s) Message-ID: <786@pyuxn.UUCP> Date: Tue, 26-Jun-84 14:31:48 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxn.786 Posted: Tue Jun 26 14:31:48 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 28-Jun-84 03:26:48 EDT References: <179@ssc-bee.UUCP> <776@pyuxn.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 129 As promise in several previous articles. A list of questions that have gone unanswered or ignored. I do hope to hear some intelligent responses. This stuff is gleaned and re-processed from earlier articles that I and others have submitted. The sections with the open questions are bracketed by '|'. Additional comments have been added in [] braces to clarify. 1) 51 FACTS ------------- > In 1861 the French Academy of Science published a book stating fifty-one > "scientific" facts that seemed to contradict the Word of God. It was very > impressive when published. Yet today, every one of these fifty-one "facts" > has been found to be unscientific! There isn't a scientist alive who believes > them. And the Bible stands! [JENDER] | Why does the author of this article fail to mention any of the | 51 "facts" he describes? [In the original article, Ray Jender discussed his "proofs" of his religious experience. He used the above paragraph as one of his pieces of evidence. I asked what the facts were that he described, but no response was forthcoming. Not to criticize Ray, but his article was but one example of an article popping up out of nowhere, prompting a number of responses that go completely unanswered. Often it has been Jeff Sargent and David Norris (and to a lesser extent Paul Dubuc and Larry Bickford) who then have to "carry the flag" to continue the discussion. Jeff's going to have his work cut out for him (if chooses to continue to carry the flag) with David now gone.] 2) ACCURACY OF PROPHECY BASED ON WIDELY APPLICABLE PHENOMENA -------------------------------------------------------------- > He prophecied earthquakes and tidal waves. He prophecied a state of > political turbulance and emotional upheaval. He said mens hearts > would be failing them for fear. The Bible says that evil men and seducers > will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. [JENDER] | What of those who predicted the end of the world in 999, also based on the | Bible? Are those who now predict that our modern time is the time of the | end of the world more enlightened about the "real" meaning behind those very | specific prophecies in the Bible that could apply to any time in history? 3) THE BIBLE IS SACROSANCT AND INFALLIBLE, BUT LET'S ONLY OBEY WHAT WE LIKE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [in response to a statement by *Bob Brown* concerning the Bible] | An interesting point: you claim that you "realize that a lot of the 600+ | laws of the Old Testament (what Jews refer to as "The Bible") don't have much | bearing on today's life" but that certain ones do. How did you make that | determination? Why are you claiming that the laws on "keeping Kosher" or | following Jewish law are obsolete, while other laws concerning sexual | practices you don't like or establishing absolute infallibility of god and | church and bible are OK? Sounds like an arbitrary distinction to me. If you | can make such determinations yourself, great. More power to you. Now allow the | rest of us the right to make the same determinations for ourselves. [The quote in the first sentence came directly from akgua!rjb's article. The question is how come he can choose to make such independent determinations as to what parts of the bible are "still valid", and what parts he can ignore, and why can't each of us then do the same?] 4) EVERYONE IS RELIGIOUS; EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING ------------------------------------------------------- | Could someone explain precisely why it is impossible not to worship? I | [don't] do it every day. Also, could someone explain what in heck Larry | meant by "the myth of neutrality"? [To summarize, Larry and others have implied that if humanists or other non-religionists do not worship god, then they must be worshipping themselves or humanity itself. My contention was that another viable option was not to worship anything, but that has been deemed an impossibility by some. I'd like to know why. Some have claimed that humanity's quest for knowledge about its origins is a 'religious sense' that everyone has, but such a "sense" has nothing to do with RELIGION (the worship of an externalized deity) but rather with humanity's inquisitiveness; to equate that with 'religion' is preposterous.] 5) SOCIETALLY PROSCRIBED ROLES IN GENERAL; SEX ROLES IN PARTICULAR -------------------------------------------------------------------- [as prompted by Steve Aldrich's original article on hermaphroditism] | Why is there a need at all to assign labels to sexual lifestyles & sex roles, | and to designate who the appropriate people (and sexes) should be to take on | those lifestyles and roles? Must there be a "husband" and "wife" in every | relationship, according to "standard" definitions of those terms? And must | it be the man who is the "husband" and the woman who is the "wife"? How can | this thinking apply in homosexual relationships among both sexes, or even in | the hypothetical two hermaphrodite relationship? Does it matter? [Steve Aldrich (ihuxj!amra) originally wrote an article on speculations about human hermaphroditism as sort of an icebreaker to open discussion on these sorts of questions. I am very curious as to what the religionist point of view on these issues would be. I have stated in the past that it would seem that religionist doctrine values the value systems and rules more than the needs and wants of the people themselves. This would be an interesting opportunity to discuss this further.] 6) SOCIETAL RULES BASED ON "ANCIENT WISDOM"/"GOD'S WORD" RATHER THAN LOGIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [in response to Jeff Sargent's remarks on good reasons for getting precepts out of books of wisdom] | 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. | Unless you want to formulate a society that looks like those silly caveman | post-nuclear societies in futuristic post-holocaust SF. ("Hark! This sign on | the road left by the ancients says "NO LEFT TURN". Thus none of us may turn | left at any time. Praise the Holy Highway Department, the ancient lords who | gave us our laws!") (Hey, I'm sure some of you out there would LOVE such a | society; we'd all be free to do what's right...) 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. ("No murder, because a precept of our society is that | interfering with the rights of another human, especially the right to live, is | wrong. Now, what about rules about who can have sex with whom? Do we need | any? No? Fine. Next topic...") 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. [Since we have been discussing the nature of Lewis' and McDowell's notions, that is not the CENTRAL issue that has been ignored here. Rather, the focus is on the notion of laws with reasons behind them, versus the silly caveman society that I describe (which has been seen in any number of SF stories and extremely shoddy made-for-TV movies). In fact, it would seem to me that in many ways we are living in such a society today, what with rules yanked out of an ancient book solely because someone says "It is the word!!!".] -- "Now, Benson, I'm going to have to turn you into a dog for a while." "Ohhhh, thank you, Master!!" Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr