> -----Original Message----- > From: Gruss Gott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 10:24 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: Christian's: Paranoid or not > > > JimBo wrote: > > Again Atheists have to tackle these emotional and intellectual > problems. > > It's scary to think that there's no plan. Disheartening to know that > > there's nobody you can call out in the dark. > > But then again, I'm not sure you're an atheist. Atheists worship no > Deity, but you seem to worship atheism.
"Worship"? How so? I am strident in my conviction, yes... but I'm not understanding how "Worship" enters into it. We've been bouncing around several themes here over the past few weeks: +) That exposure to atheism is "bad" for children and (as a corollary) that atheists are using underhanded means to "recruit" children. +) That morality is primarily religious in nature and that atheism provides no moral foundation. I make no apologies for passionately disagreeing with either stance. Atheism, by its very nature, is a reflective stance. Atheism only exists because of religion. It exists to give meaning to a belief (that there is no God). I won't argue otherwise. Because of this Atheism is often mistaken as fundamentally religious in nature, but this is a mistake. The purpose of any religion is to gain followers thus strengthening and spreading the religion. Although there is no truly organized "recruiting" policy (despite what the Catholic League might say) Atheism is similar in that respect: clearly, to an atheist, a world with more atheists would be nicer. However looking at the conclusive points shows a dramatically different result. Atheism's ultimate purpose (if it can be said to have one) is - in a sense - to eliminate atheism. Atheism is ultimately self-effacing. In other words if atheism were universal there would be no need for atheism. Just as we don't have a social movement declaring the color of sky we wouldn't need atheism: facts don't need movements to remain facts. A universal religion, however, would retain itself forever. Under universal Catholicism, for example, mass would still be held, churches would still exist. Religion requires action to exist, atheism does not. In short religion requires worship to exist, atheism does not. That's not to say that people couldn't worship it... and I'm curious how you think I do. I also want to be clear about another thing that often gets confused: Atheism is not "anti-religion". Atheism is a declaration that no supernatural God exists. That's it. Atheists can be surprisingly pro religion in many ways. I personally am BOTH an atheist AND against religion (on principle) - they do fit together nicely but neither requires the other. Finally... why should I read the book? From a cursory glance it seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand. Although this one does seem (somewhat) above the norm I'm also more than sick of the word "quantum" being applied to metaphysical claptrap... and to medical quackery and to the paranormal and to just about anything that makes no sense but sounds vacantly smarter when you say it's in a "Quantum state". The book may be great but my stomach for quantum physics applied to anything but physics is pretty weak. ;^) Still, I'm curious why it think it would be useful in this area. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Download the latest ColdFusion 8 utilities including Report Builder, plug-ins for Eclipse and Dreamweaver updates. http;//www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs%5adobecf8%5Fbeta Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:247816 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
