Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!yale!husc6!caip!clyde!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!dmcanzi
From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.religion,talk.religion
Subject: Re: Banning books, religion etc...
Message-ID: <2510@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Sep-86 00:30:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.2510
Posted: Wed Sep  3 00:30:53 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Sep-86 04:54:17 EDT
References: <1637@ames.UUCP> <180@BMS-AT.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Distribution: net
Organization: Secular Humanist Conspiracy, Child Corruption Division
Lines: 58
Xref: linus net.religion:10688 talk.religion:45
Summary: Garbage for lunch.  Yum, yum!

In article <180@BMS-AT.UUCP> stuart@BMS-AT.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes:

On why, having seen 2001, he deliberately missed 2010:

>> >I will just say that they belong
>> >to a genre which present Mankind as evolving to higher and higher states.
>> >(This is often called Humanism).  I find this concept arrogant and foolish
>> >whether viewed from a christian or existential standpoint.
...
>A christian does (should?) not accept Humanism because it tries to
>improve the human race without God.  Trying to run our lives without
>consulting the manufacturer or His intructions is how we got
>into such a mess in the first place!
>
>Why I don't diet exclusively on garbage:
>
>> 	What I *do* find a bit arrogant and foolish is the desire
>> to avoid being presented with ideas with which one does not
>> agree. Arrogant, because it suggests that one's ideas are
>> incapable of further refinement, and foolish because it inhibits
>> such refinement.  [Kenn Barry]
>
>When I read that many people eat garbage to stay alive, I went out
>to our garbage cans and looked at it, smelled, and put my finger in some
>slime (I couldn't bring myself to actually taste it).  I wanted to
>have some idea of what these people went through.  I don't, however,
>ever eat garbage.  I might if I had to live in such conditions in order
>to befriend and help the people,  but it would be foolish for me to
>do so just for kicks.

In other words, you avoid exposure to the ideas of what you call
"Humanism" because they disgust you -- or, more accurately, because
you react to them with disgust.  

I read sometime within the last two years, of an experiment that was
done, trying to get children to drink milk in which a dead fly
(sterilized, of course) had been openly placed.  Younger children drank
the milk with the fly in it.  Older children turned it down, looking
disgusted.

The point?  We aren't born with a natural disgust towards dead flies,
we *learn* it.  Our parents teach us disgust in other ways, eg. "Don't
put that dirty thing in your mouth! Gak! Caca!" And more subtly, if your
parents always use a tone of disgust when they speak of something, such
as atheists or humanists, you acquire the habit from them, and for the
rest of your life you unthinkingly react to atheistic and humanistic
ideas with disgust.

Of course, since you react with disgust whenever you are confronted by
certain ideas contrary to your religion, you are unable to examine
those ideas to see if they are true or not.  If, God forbid, some of
your good Christian principles are mistaken and the damned humanists
are right about some things, you will never know, because you
automatically censor your inputs.  You have been conditioned, just like
Skinner's pigeons and Pavlov's dogs.  Or, perhaps, programmed is the
right word...
-- 
David Canzi			"... don't see the fnords ..."