leaking pen wrote:
"Christians like me don't mind the harmless atheists."
missed that one...
really now. pay any attention to people like Bush, who stated that
athiests cant be considered patriots, and are a danger to the
country? hows about pat robertson, who prays for the death of
athiests daily, and wants a national religion imposed with penalties
for those who dont proscribe.
Haven't seen the quote from Bush. Remember George Bush is a new convert.
I know people who firmily believe the statement. The context is
everything in such a statement. I wonder if he's quoting someone?
Pat Robinson should not talk on foreign policy. I understand what he
meant when he said what he said about Hugo Chávez. It was stupid.
Chavez is not a dictator but may go that way. Some in defence ask the
question about pre-empting dictatorship. We have the technology they
say. We should save lives by acting now. I believe they are wrong.
I'm not a fan of tele evanglists.
christians like YOU, perhaps, i dont know what kind of christian you
are. christians like ME, definately. but most christians... no.
they are quite harmful and hatefull towards others. atheist or non.
You must have run into some very sad churches. I guess I've been lucky.
I'm a Salvo by the way.
On 12/6/05, *OrionWorks* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
Recent exchanges between Mr. Rothwell and Mr. Wesley concerning
the topic of "Absolute Truth" brings to mind a terrible trap I
believe we all must be careful not to fall into: Subscribing to
the Knowledge of the Gods.
Mr. Wesley reminds us that we have recently lived in an age where
"Atheism used guns to attempt to enforce its will." (Germany, WWII
and Nazism, of course, comes to mind.) However, Mr. Wesley goes on
to state that "Christians like me don't mind the harmless
atheists." ...and I'm not going to let such an arrogant conjecture
stand unchallenged.
The sword that yields the Knowledge of the Gods is a double-edged
one. It's easy to substitute the philosophy of "Atheism" with any
god-fearing brand of religion and, going back through history,
find EXACTLY the same despicable carnage performed on others.
One of the best PBS TV programs I ever saw that dealt with this
issue was authored by the late Jacob Browonski. I'm referring to
the "The Ascent of Man" mini-series, first aired back in the
1970s. The particular installment that comes to mind is titled
"Knowledge or Certainty."
For reference see:
http://ronrecord.com/Quotes/bronowski.html
From the "Knowledge or Certainty", an episode from the 1973 BBC
series "The Ascent of Man", transcribed by Evan Hunt:
Quoting Jacob Bronowski:
----------------------------------------------------------
The Principle of Uncertainty is a bad name. In science--or outside
of it--we are not uncertain; our knowledge is merely confined,
within a certain tolerance. We should call it the Principle of
Tolerance. And I propose that name in two senses: First, in the
engineering sense--science has progressed, step by step, the most
successful enterprise in the ascent of man, because it has
understood that the exchange of information between man and
nature, and man and man, can only take place with a certain
tolerance.
But second, I also use the word, passionately, about the real
world. All knowledge--all information between human beings--can
only be exchanged within a play of tolerance. And that is true
whether the exchange is in science, or in literature, or in
religion, or in politics, or in *any* form of thought that aspires
to dogma. It's a major tragedy of my lifetime and yours that
scientists were refining, to the most exquisite precision, the
Principle of Tolerance--and turning their backs on the fact that
all around them, tolerance was crashing to the ground beyond repair.
The Principle of Uncertainty or, in my phrase, the Principle of
Tolerance, fixed once for all the realization that all knowledge
is limited. It is an irony of history that at the very time when
this was being worked out there should rise, under Hitler in
Germany and other tyrants elsewhere, a counter-conception: a
principle of monstrous certainty. When the future looks back on
the 1930s it will think of them as a crucial confrontation of
culture as I have been expounding it, the ascent of man, against
the throwback to the despots' belief that they have absolute
certainty.
It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into
numbers. That is false: tragically false. Look for yourself. This
is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. [The
viewer sees Bronowsky walk directly into the marshlands near
Auschwitz where millions of Jews were cremated.] *This* is where
people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the
ashes of four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was
done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance.
When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no
test in reality--this is how they behave. This is what men do when
they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the
brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be
hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge or error, and
is personal. Science is a tribute to what we *can* know although
we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver
Cromwell: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ: Think it
possible you may be mistaken."
We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and
power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order
and the human act. We have to *touch people*.
-------------------------------------------------------
While Bronowski's essay was directed in the most immediate sense
at the atrocities of Nazism his words accurately reflect the
misdeeds any philosophy that subscribes to the Knowledge of the
Gods, whether it is based on atheism or theism, can do to mankind.
Arrogance is an equal opportunity employer.
Regards,
Steven Vincent Johnson
www.OrionWorks.com <http://www.OrionWorks.com>
--
"Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to
make it possible for you to continue to write" Voltaire
