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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Invitation for Scott Deerwester
Message-ID: <5423@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Apr-85 05:15:24 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5423
Posted: Fri Apr  5 05:15:24 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Apr-85 05:15:24 EST
References: <>, <398@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 29

Rich, could you lay off for a bit? I would like to talk to Scott and
I figure that others might as well, but I am never going to find out
who they are if you flame all people who talk about religious
experience into the ground. Only tough old birds like me will come out.

Your position is that since Scott's existing beliefs could have (have)
influenced his experience, and that his experience could be the result
of wishful thinking, that it is okay to flame it. Could you sit back
a minute, take about 30 deep breaths and consider the problem from the
point of view of someone who is already having religious experiences?

I know that something is happening. I recognise that how I interpret
things is in part determined by the beliefs that I already have. I do
not think that this makes my beliefs in non-religious areas useless. Why
should this make my religious beliefs useless? If what I have is an
extreme case of self-hypnosis based on wishful thinking I am sure that
I will discover this through inconsistencies over the next decade or so.
In the mean time all your talk of wishful thinking strikes me as irrelevant.
I *don't* think that I am hypnotising myself with wishful thinking, and it
is going to take more than the knowledge that Rich Roisen thinks that I am
to change my belief -- just that it is going to take more than Dave
Norris (remember him) saying that I must become a Christian in order to
not go to hell to make me believe him.

Scott, I question some of your conclusions. Do you want to move this to
private mail, or shall with withstand the flamage of the dictionary-wielder?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura