From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jan 25 2002 - 07:44:31 MST
[Hermit] We knew that David Hill was obnoxious ["RE: virus: RE: He who makes
the rules wins", David Hill, Wed 2002-01-23 12:32]. Now, for those who had
not already guessed it, David Hill confirms that he is stupid as well, based
on the following and certain solipsistic assertions.
<quote>
["RE: virus: Kirk: Standing my ground",David Hill,Thu 2002-01-24 12:27]
[David Hill]
God exists, and believe-> win big
God exists, and don't believe -> lose big
God doesn't exist and either believe or don't -> no difference.
</quote>
[Hermit] There are a lot of questions that David Hill seems to be missing.
Like, "Which of the millions of gods that man has invented do you want to be
the real 'God'?" Many of the gods we have invented to date are "jealous."
Pick the wrong bunch and, according to their adherents, you are fucked. As
there will always be more gods that you cannot pick than gods you can pick,
your chances of a win are minimal anyway.
[Hermit] Given David Hill's use of the late Judaic formulation of a singular
"God," we can assume that the god he is suggesting is the Judaic Mountain
God, "Jaweh" or "Baal", and that David Hill is granting the idea that
investing belief in this unpleasant entity may lead to a "win big"
potential. Yet even this supposed god's own supporters acknowledge that
their "god" is unfair, vindictive and a liar. Thus there may not be
(probably isn't, as there is no evidence for it) any reward at the end of
the rainbow.
[Hermit] The evil that belief (whether in gods, one's ancestors or something
else) does, is visible throughout the history of mankind. So the supposition
that there is unmitigated gain, or "no loss" believing in gods is
unsupportable.
[Hermit] Meantime, to choose a god, any god, means choosing the irrational,
which means that you "lose big", right here and right now, in the only life
we know. That evolution was in vain, having developed the capacity to be
rational, that we choose to reject it. Against this is simply the
supposition that choosing some god, any god, can yield some "wins." An idea,
which probably not accidently, can never be validated. Can anything else we
do to ourselves be more brain challenged than this?
[Hermit] An Atheist is simply somebody who places no <i>belief<i> in gods.
Any gods. This applies to all atheists. If you vest belief in gods, any
gods, you are not an atheist.
[Hermit] Atheists come in two principle flavors each having multiple subtly
different sub-classes which I will ignore. There are, I am told, "Strong
atheists" (I have never met one) who assert, without evidence, that there
are no "gods"; and "weak atheists" who acknowledge that there may be "gods"
but that it is not worth believing in them.
[Hermit] There are also certain atheists, myself amongst them, that combine
these two positions. For example, I assert that the ridiculous and vicious
Christian gods cannot exist except in the diseased minds of their followers
(innumerable internal and external contradictions) but that there may be
some creatures somewhere in the Universe that I might call "gods" if I knew
about them. This does not affect my atheism, as I do not consider investing
anything (let alone something as pernicious as "belief") in some
hypothetical, undefined possibility. I use the singular, as, in our
experience, the only way there could be a singular god would be if it were
nasty enough to have killed the rest of its own kind - which wouldn't be
deserving of acknowledgement, never mind inviting them to tea or anything
more personal.
[Hermit] I once described it like this:
["RE: virus: sophomoric atheism (literalness issues)", Hermit, Thu
1999-10-28 21:57]
<quote>
[Hermit 3.2] On the one hand we have "god-thingies as defined by the
religious", in other words specific gods with specific attributes and
generally speaking, easy refutation due to the "impossible" nature of the
assigned attributes (through internal or external contradiction). On the
other hand, there is the general class of god-thingies without assigned
attributes which are impossible to refute, and in fact not worth refuting as
the proponents of the idea of such god-thingies cannot provide any evidence
for the necessity of such god-thingies and in fact, generally speaking, the
existence or non-existence of such god-thingies would not make a difference
to the mankind. Finally we have the idea of god-thingies, which while it
definitely exists, has no positive effect on humans.
<quote>
[Hermit] Most so called agnostics are simply confused. Some people do call
themselves agnostics as they prefer to think of themselves as 'not being as
nasty' as the common portrayal of atheists as child-murderers and cannibals.
But the term agnosticism was invented by Thomas Huxley, so it seems fair to
let himself define it.
<quote>
...it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of
any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies
that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it
is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny, and
repudiate as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions
which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence."
["Agnosticism and Christianity and Other Essays", Thomas Henry Huxley 1889,
Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1992, p. 193.]
</quote>
[Hermit] So unless an agnostic believes (that word again) that there are
reasons to "believe" in gods, without evidence for those gods (which would
be even more ludicrous than the typical bible wielding believer's faith),
the agnostic is simply an atheist, wearing a label permitting him to
socialize with the vicar (and vice versa).
[Hermit] For myself, when I see a turd ("belief") floating in the teapot, I
prefer to avoid joining the party no matter who labels it as something else.
Hermit
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:41 MDT