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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Shove over and make room for God!
Message-ID: <20852@styx.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Sep-86 18:47:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: styx.20852
Posted: Thu Sep 11 18:47:45 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Sep-86 02:46:38 EDT
References: <5160@decwrl.DEC.COM> <3566@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU> <194@BMS-AT.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Distribution: na
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 29

In article <194@BMS-AT.UUCP> stuart@BMS-AT.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes:
> In article <3566@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU>, za56@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Brian McNeill) writes:
> 
> > This is because many people have always felt insecure without final
> > meaning to their life.  . . .
> > . . .           People have invented religion to give their lives
> > meaning, to assuage their fear of death.
> 
> Finally we have a statement from a consistent atheist.  There is just no
> way to poke holes in a position that denies real meaning.  This
> outlook is even Biblical!  In the book Ecclesiastes, the teacher 
> concludes after extensive observation costing his nation billions 
> of equivalent dollars that either
> 
> a)	God does not exist and everything is meaningless.
> 
> b)	God does exist and it is best to seek Him early in life.

Mr. Gathman misses the point. The people who needed religion derived it in
order to give their lives meaning. Other people ALREADY HAD meaning to
their lives, and thus did not need the externality of religion.

The most likely state of affairs is neither of the above, but instead
that God does not exist, and everything is NOT meaningless. In which case 
Pascal's advice is not useful.

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb